Friendship

Grade: A-

This weekend is bringing us Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and Lilo & Stitch. Like the Barbenheimer phenomenon in July 2023, I’ve already heard this one be called Stitchin’: Impossible. I’ll get to those. They may very well be fine films, but I have a feeling I’ve already seen the richest, most meaningful, and thought-provoking one of the weekend – and that’s Friendship. It’s perfectly fine to just appreciate it for the good movie it is. However, it shook me, and got under my skin on a deeper level. I am a crème brûlée, and Friendship is the spoon that pierced the surface and dug down.

It’s a stress test of uneasiness, chock full of uncomfortable lines, moments, and beats. You will get…I was going to say second-hand embarrassment, but that would imply the main character is embarrassed. I’m not sure it’s in his emotional vocabulary. Star Tim Robinson is best known for a sketch comedy series called I Think You Should Leave (it’s appropriate that he’s told this at least once in Friendship), but I had never seen him before. He creates a character that is unhinged and socially awkward, and is so convincing at it that I went down a rabbit hole of interview footage just to see that he’s a normal guy in real life.

He plays Craig, a marketing executive who lives in the Colorado suburbs with his wife Tami (Kate Mara) and teenage son Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer, from the 2017/19 IT movies). Craig has extreme Main Character Syndrome, as we all have a tendency towards, periodically. I’ve been guilty of thinking, after seeing an ambulance pass me: “I hope the accident it’s going to isn’t on my route, because that would cause traffic and make me late.” He takes every negative encounter with another person as them wanting to hurt or otherwise inconvenience HIM.

Austin (Paul Rudd) and his wife have just moved down the street from Craig. They have a Bro Meet Cute, when a package for Austin mistakenly gets delivered to Craig’s house, so he runs it over there. It is instant admiration, and from there, they have “a couple of good hangs.” Two bad things happen on the second one, which causes Austin to – understandably – inform Craig that he doesn’t feel like they should continue their friendship. He sends him on his way with well-wishes.

“How dare he,” Craig thinks. “You can’t just build up such a great relationship, and suddenly cut it off when I’m already so invested.” The Banshees of Inisherin came to mind, as did a house-breaking-into scene in One Hour Photo. Craig’s behavior becomes increasingly more boundary-pushing and stalkerish, and Friendship – which already had an off-kilter tone – turns into a dark thriller. My favorite movie review podcast kept using words like “comedy” and “funny” when describing it, but I thought the humor was secondary to the unsettling tone and theme. There are plenty of laughs, particularly from the drug trip scene, which is my favorite such sequence I’ve ever seen – but I got something deeper from it. I haven’t done most of the stuff Craig stoops to, but I understand the feelings of isolation and rejection. I certainly recognized the situation of having a cool friend, and the attempts at replicating what he does, like creating a new group of hangout buddies, or taking his family to some of the same places Austin took him. Perhaps, just for instance, someone is jealous of the camaraderie in a certain Facebook friends group their spouse takes part in, and creates something like it of their own, in an attempt to get a similar thing going.

Paul Rudd’s mustache makes him look surprisingly different, and helps him disappear into the character. Kate Mara is wonderful as the long-suffering wife. I initially wondered how Craig managed to stay married and in this family for this long, being how he is – but if you pay attention, you’ll get glimpses of an answer. There is moment after moment where you will think “oh, don’t do that” and “oh, don’t say that,” only for him to do that and say that, and do and say even more. The filmmaking style and general construction of Friendship is its own distinct beast. I hope many people see it, and I am very interested in the discussions it will generate.

The final sequence had me thinking I knew exactly what was going to happen, twice, only to be wrong both times. I liked how somebody does someone else a favor in a clever way, and even though there can never be a friendship again, there’s a note of gratitude shown. The “solid” they were done is not overlooked. Friendship was more than just a compelling thriller/comedy for me. I was heavily affected by it, and it influenced my behavior, for the better, hours after seeing it. I have a feeling it will hit men hard in particular. It made me want to be more present in my family’s life, be a better husband/father/person, and made me glad I wasn’t Craig. Or hope I wasn’t him. Or second guess whether I was him. I’m not him, am I?

Grade: A-