During one scene in “The Friend,” an argument breaks out between two students in Iris’ (Naomi Watts) writing class during a peer review session. The argument arises between a girl and a particularly irritating boy, who is criticizing the girl’s main character. She’s too regular to be the main character of a story, he says. People like that are a dime a dozen. What’s the point?
The argument might as well refer to “The Friend” itself, which is (ostensibly) about regular people. Iris is a professor who lives alone in New York City, dealing with her grief over losing her colleague and friend Walter (Bill Murray) to suicide. As if dealing with that loss wasn’t enough, Walter has left his Great Dane, Apollo, under Iris’ care. From that description alone, you can glean that “The Friend” is a heartbreaker – a movie about everyday people and the everyday problems they face, and how the love of a dog can make everything just a little bit better.
Sounds great, right? It could have been! But “The Friend,” unfortunately, isn’t able to capitalize on its premise. Instead, the only real emotion it’s able to conjure is cheap and emotionally manipulative. Instead, it’s about the oddest combination of characters you’ll ever see in a movie that’s this low stakes. Instead, it seems to be about people (and perhaps made by people) who have never owned – or perhaps even seen – a dog. The biggest problem with “The Friend,” however, is its insistence on low stakes drama, and its inability to sprout big emotion from that formula.
I could spend this review talking about how the film’s dialogue is almost nothing but exposition and people taking the time to explicitly explain their feelings to one another. I could talk about how one of the only serious conflicts between two characters arises because one of them accuses the other of writing too slowly. I could talk about the frankly baffling confrontation toward the film’s end and how awkwardly it handles the concept of suicide and mental health, or the film’s manipulative “twist” ending. But writing about all of that would bum me out a little bit more than this movie already has. So instead, I’m going to talk about the dog.
The thing about Apollo (he is played by Bing, a Harlequin Great Dane who I have no qualms with. He is, as they say, the goodest boy), is he is one of the most well-behaved dogs I’ve ever encountered in a movie – maybe, even, in my life. He’s mourning the loss of his owner, so he’s very morose, perhaps even a bit sassy at times. But overall, he’s excellent. He’s good on a leash, he’s very gentle, and his favorite thing to do is to listen to people read. For context, my dog (I love him, but he’s a beagle – if you know, you know) still can’t be left unattended with a trash can, tugs on his leash like there’s no tomorrow, and once stole an entire slice of pizza out of my friend’s hand.
So Apollo, despite his obvious distress at the loss of Walter, is a pretty good dog. But from the way everyone acts in “The Friend,” you would think he was the devil incarnate. When he climbs on couches or beds, people are shocked. When he’s a little bit afraid of Iris’ rickety apartment elevator, she acts like she’s been betrayed. The first time he’s left alone in Iris’ apartment, he goes full destroyer mode, ripping up things and tipping over furniture. This is objectively the worst thing he does, but considering he is alone in a new, strange place for the first time, it’s understandable. Plus, he only does that once, which, first of all, feels highly unrealistic, and also only serves as further evidence that this is, all things considered, a very good dog.
The “conflict” between Apollo and Iris feels massively unearned. It would be one thing if Iris ever attempted to give Apollo affection and he rebuffed her, forcing her to earn his trust. But, for the majority of the film’s runtime, Iris treats Apollo like a pariah, something to be dealt with and ignored. It’s pretty well-documented that dogs have the capability to grieve. But when Apollo grieves for Walter, everyone around him – Iris included – acts confused. It takes a trip to the vet for Iris to comprehend that Apollo is not having “fits.” He’s simply mourning.
It’s also during this visit that a vet asks Apollo to sit. When he does, Iris is blown away by this simple trick. “I’ve never seen him do that before!” she exclaims. Well yes, Iris. You pay no attention to him.
Out of context, this might not sound all that out of the ordinary. I am not so dog-obsessed as to not understand that some people might not want a Great Dane sleeping on their bed. And all of this is of course meant to build up to a massive revelation from Iris that she does care for this dog, the ambivalence slowly growing into love.
But that conflict – and all conflicts in “The Friend” – is rendered so slightly, is so low stakes, that the big emotion that’s supposed to come out of all of these little moments feels preposterous and out of place. Dogs aren’t allowed in Iris’ apartment, and towards the end of the film she receives an ultimatum – the dog, or the apartment. Her neighbor Marjorie (Ann Dowd) pleads with Iris to give Apollo up, at one point almost beginning to cry and invoking Iris’ dead father. The emotion pouring out of her doesn’t match the circumstance.
I don’t agree with the take from the beginning of this piece. I think writing about regular people and their everyday problems is essential. The trick though, is to find that deep feeling within the everyday. You can’t just rely on a cute dog to take care of the emotional parts for you.
