The Friend
In Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s slender, unusual and talky drama, Naomi Watts plays a New York writer who finds herself stuck with a Great Dane.
Man’s best: Naomi Watts with Bing (as Apollo)
Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Walter had a lot of women in his life, but only one real female friend. His constant companion, though, was all male, albeit of the canine variety. So when Walter takes his own life, he bequeaths his Great Dane to his special friend, Iris (Naomi Watts). But Iris doesn’t like dogs, lives in a small, rent-controlled apartment with a strict no-dog policy and, well, the last thing she needs is a distraction from the book she is working on.
Most films about dogs tend to be on the sentimental side, something one could never accuse Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s movie of being. Adapted from the National Book Award-winning novel by Sigrid Nunez, The Friend is not a cinematic thing, not only falling back on various literary devices, but set in the rarified world of New York’s literati. There’s nothing wrong with a bookish film, so long as there’s a strong narrative to propel the story along. But The Friend just drifts from one vignette to the next, without establishing any momentum to draw the viewer in. The plot, for want of a better word, sees Iris attempting to rub along with her ungainly new roommate (who won’t let her sleep in her own bed), while trying to reconcile herself with Walter’s suicide.
In spite of some underwhelming diversions, one can see where The Friend is headed, while it fails to establish any head of steam. Naomi Watts is invariably good value to spend time with (it doesn’t seem long ago that, in Penguin Bloom, she played a woman whose life is transformed by the inadvertent adoption of another creature in her life – in that case a magpie), and there’s solid support from Sarah Pidgeon as Walter’s daughter Val, and, briefly, Noma Dumezweni and Ann Dowd. But the film needs more than commendable performances. Bill Murray, who receives star billing as Walter, appears in a brief prologue and a flashback and in an imagined discourse, merely accentuating the deficiency of his absence.
Some of the novel’s more profound meditations on life (and the taking of it) filter through, and the writer-directors McGehee and Siegel can’t help but deliver perceptive and handsome films. But besides the occasional striking line of dialogue, what The Friend really lacks is drama.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, Sarah Pidgeon, Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, Noma Dumezweni, Ann Dowd, Felix Solis, Owen Teague, Josh Pais, Tom McCarthy, Bruce Norris, Carrie Vu, Ian Lithgow, Bing.
Dir Scott McGehee and David Siegel, Pro Scott McGehee, David Siegel, Liza Chasin and Mike Spreter, Ex Pro Naomi Watts, Screenplay Scott McGehee and David Siegel, from the novel by Sigrid Nunez, Ph Giles Nuttgens, Pro Des Kelly McGehee, Ed Isaac Hagy, Music Jay Wadley and Trevor Gureckis, Costumes Stacey Battat, Sound Paul Hsu.
3dot Productions/Big Creek-Universal Pictures.
119 mins. USA. 2024. US Rel: 4 April 2025. UK Rel: 25 April 2025. Cert. 15.
