THE STORY – Iris is a struggling, middle-aged writer who is forced to take care of her friend Walter’s many life problems upon his untimely death, principally among them his larger-than-life Great Dane Apollo.
THE CAST – Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, Constance Wu, Carla Gugino & Ann Dowd
THE TEAM – Scott McGehee & David Siegel (Directors/Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 120 Minutes
You would be forgiven for thinking that Naomi Watts’ upcoming film “The Friend” is…another sappy dog movie. Indeed, early in the movie, the characters discuss the real-life story that inspired the Richard Gere film “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale,” which is about the pup who waited for his dead master at a train station for ten years. As it turns out, this movie—which just had its world premiere at the 51st Telluride Film Festival—is quite a bit more complex than that tired genre, though this does not mean that it is not sentimental or that it will leave dry eyes in the house by the time the credits roll.
“The Friend” is loosely adapted from the novel of the same name by Sigrid Nunez. It features a gaggle of well-to-do, overly educated, upper-middle-class New Yorkers and their companions, perpetually discussing the vagaries of life while showcasing their inability to achieve happiness fully, Woody Allen style, amid thick glasses of wine, cocktail parties, and bougie dinners. At the center of the plot is Iris (an unadulterated Naomi Watts in one of her very best performances), a struggling writer who teaches a literary workshop at Pace University while editing her close friend Walter’s (Bill Murray) popular work. Iris lives in a cramped, rent-controlled apartment in Washington Square Park. Walter lives in a luxurious townhouse deep in Brooklyn. This being a New York set piece, both living spaces are thoughtfully designed by the film’s art directors, size differences notwithstanding.
Walter dies unexpectedly, and Iris is left to pick up the pieces—the pieces of his unfinished novel, the pieces of his three wives’ inability to get over Walter fully, and the pieces left behind when Walter’s Great Dane Apollo crashes through the room. Iris has to deal with all of this while confronting her own demons with Walter, including rage, possessiveness, and forgiveness. The principal problem is that her meanie landlord is going to evict her if she does not rid herself of Apollo pronto, a move she cannot bring herself to make given the pup’s already suffering condition over the death of his master.
As Iris handles these and other problems, the contours of her and Walter’s lives are revealed slowly and methodically, as if one were dropping little morsels of food along a long trajectory. Walter’s first wife, Elaine (Carla Gugino), has not gotten over him, even though the two were distant for so long that she was unaware that Walter had a grown daughter (Val, played by Sarah Pidgeon) with another woman. Walter’s second wife, Tuesday (Constance Wu), is insufferable and unhelpful. His editor, Jerry (Josh Pais), wants the novel finished yesterday. Iris’ noisy neighbor Marjorie (Ann Dowd) is allergic to Apollo but welcoming of Iris’ choices, having become close to her now-dead father when he inhabited the apartment.
More profound themes slowly emerge among this chaotic group of eccentric characters, which evoke “Seinfeld” and other classic entries into the pantheon of “New York dramedies about self-absorbed people.” Most significantly, the movie deftly explores the theme of what impressions we leave behind on those we loved, and even on those we simply knew, after we die. “The Friend” also repeatedly advances its views about the inherent selfishness in the human condition—the selfishness of suicide, the selfishness of many friendships, and the selfishness and, therefore, loneliness of modern existence. Only Apollo, grieving in his own right for Walter, raises above these petty human insignificances.
The familiar tropes of the genre nonetheless continue to surround this thoughtful movie, bringing it down every time it is on the verge of greatness. Iris, for example, is portrayed repeatedly as, ahem, a “childless cat lady.” She is miffed that her friends constantly comment on the size of her apartment. Later, she is annoyed that her friends constantly comment on her Apollo situation and impending eviction. Iris narrates—touchingly, in a way only Watts can do—many of the novel’s philosophical musings, persistently distracting from and unnecessarily enlarging the plot.
At some point towards “The Friend’s” third act, Iris complains about the pet story cliché. She says that “we expect the worst” from these tales, starting with children’s books, lamenting that the animals most commonly die and, even when they survive, they have suffered tremendously. Will the author later betray her supposed disdain for this sort of conclusion? You will have to watch it to find out.
What is true is that Apollo’s trajectory is different from those Iris decries. He suffers, sure, but not from abuse or torture. He suffers because he is human in his suffering, and he needs consolation, which Iris apprehensively at first but devotedly later provides. In this respect alone, “The Friend” does indeed differentiate itself from most of the “dog movies” of yore you have seen, making it worth the price of admission.
