The Friend Review
In a month when animals are helping us get in touch with our emotions – see last week’s The Penguin Lessons – you’d be forgiven for assuming that The Friend is yet another devoted dog story, with all the schmaltz that implies. Breathe a sigh of relief. ittedly, the canine loyalty is there, but its attempts at complexity lift it out of what is an overused genre and takes it into some unexpected territory.
Struggling writer Iris (Naomi Watts) teaches a literary workshop and edits her friend Walter’s (Bill Murray) work while living in a small, rent-controlled apartment. Her life follows a set routine, and she likes it that way, but Walter’s unexpected death turns everything upside down. Personal grief aside, she also has to cope with his bequest, which comes in the huge and disruptive shape of his Great Dane, Apollo. The dog dominates her living space, trashing it, monopolising her bed, and putting her home in jeopardy when the landlord threatens to enforce the “no dogs” rule and evict her. And her friend and mentor’s demise also leaves her picking up the scattered pieces of his life, especially his ex-wives and adult daughter Val (Sarah Pidgeon), who is helping Iris with the book.
The conventional view of the Brooklyn Bridge in the opening scene plants the film in a familiar landscape, that of Woody Allen’s Manhattan, and never quite manages to move away. It’s another love letter to New York, with educated, well-to-do friends sitting around the dinner table discussing life and their own inabilities to find that holy grail of happiness – accompanied by copious quantities of wine, of course. The wit, when it rises to the surface, is dry, and what we see and hear in those get-togethers is full of hints and nuances towards the reality of the relationships on screen. As the narrative unfolds, we’re drip-fed the truth – Walter’s relationships with his wives and Iris, and the nature of his death in particular – although some are still left to our imagination.
While the setting, especially the interiors, is lovingly created and some of the characters well-observed – Watts infuses Iris with a longing for direction and the inability to find it which is especially appealing – there’s a frustrating sense of potential unfulfilled about the film as a whole, especially when it comes to two of the cast. Wry humour is Murray’s stock in trade, yet we’re only treated to his presence for a handful of scenes, so anything approaching laughter is kept on a tight leash, and Ann Dowd, as Iris’s dog-allergic neighbour, is so underused it’s criminal. For the first ninety minutes, we see her only once and all-too-fleetingly. She re-appears just at the point when we’re wondering if we’ll ever see her again, and, while she’s worth the wait – when isn’t she? – it’s also when the story is starting to feel over-stretched and too slight for the two-hour running time.
But let’s not forget Apollo, a stunning black and white Great Dane who, when visiting one of Walter’s ex-wives in her designer apartment, looks like he was born to grace the pages of an interiors magazine. The development of his relationship with Iris is at the heart of the film, even though she’s a self-confessed “cat person”, and is portrayed with an irresistible gentleness. As for the identity of the friend in the title, the decision is yours, but the film might just encourage you to give more than a ing thought to the variable nature of friendship. Tissues might be useful.
★★★
In UK cinemas from April 25th / Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, Constance Wu, Ann Dowd, Owen Teague, Sarah Pidgeon, Noma Dumezweni and Bing / Dirs: Scott McGehee, David Siegel / Universal Pictures / 15
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