Independent filmmaking duo Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s The Friend, their newest in a 30-year collaboration, is a dog movie. Or, more aptly, it’s a film about a dog and Iris (Naomi Watts), a woman who hates dogs. Iris inherits a Great Dane, Apollo, from her late friend, mentor, and lover Walter (Bill Murray). The movie, adapted from Sigrid Nunez’s National Book Award-winning novel of the same name, is light to the touch, despite its themes of grief, suicide, and depression. It’s the type of film my parents would love––something shown on a cable network on a Sunday afternoon, easy to watch with just enough substance to make the audience feel something reminiscent of sadness. That’s a compliment, though: The Friend reminds us of the immeasurable role that dogs, and pets, play in our lives.
The film wouldn’t work without the dog, this hulking animal named Bing in real life. Siegel and McGehee rest on the Great Dane more often than not, his big eyes sullen and sad after his owner’s passing. He takes up space by existing, presenting both an obstacle and opportunity for Iris to move forward. It’s one of the great dog performances of the last decade, even though much of this praise is aimed at his size and ability to just be still, allowing the audience to imbue whatever it wants onto him. And that’s what pets often give us, and what The Friend gets right: a canvas to put our emotions onto, companions that help us through the darkest times and are ready to celebrate the wins right alongside us.
It’s a sappy, saccharine story, using and reusing cliches that have been seen in other films on grief. Iris doesn’t like Apollo at first, then slowly warms up to him, as he does with her. She’s a writer working on a book of Walter’s letters with his daughter, grappling with their relationship over the years. She even talks to his ghost at one point. There doesn’t seem to be much conflict outside of Iris’s apartment building not allowing pets, a problem that will always resolve itself with a nice bow. It isn’t a movie that’s trying to reinvent the wheel. It brings the audience into a story where the beats are known, but still purposeful.
Naomi Watts gives a sturdy performance next to Bing the Great Dane. She’s happy to run around New York with her arm attached to Bing. The rest of the supporting cast fill one-off scenes that don’t work as well, with ex-wives playing a larger-than-necessary part in the plot. Walter’s misconduct as a professor is mentioned once and then forgotten, as Bill Murray pops in and out of the film to be charming enough for audiences to forget his, and his character’s, much more complicated personal life. But when the film rests with Watts and Bing, with a woman and her new dog, it flourishes. They often sit in silence, looking at one another like longtime friends or partners, pausing in the heartbreak of their shared grief. They both knew and loved Walter, for all of his faults. Alone they continue to suffer, but together they can mourn and cherish him.
Dogs and pets aren’t trite. Their inclusion doesn’t make a film less mature or less weighty. In this case, they give The Friend all of its meaning. Siegel & McGehee attempt to capture New York with all of its chaos and the impact a friend’s death can have on someone. Instead they find definition in the bond between a dog and the new person taking him on walks, feeding him, and fighting for him.
As someone who had a dog I loved through childhood, who was with me during the scary and exciting moments of growing up, it became difficult to keep the film at arm’s length. Likely, one’s opinion of pets will have sway over their opinion of this story. I, for one, am a big fan of dogs––that was enough to make The Friend worthwhile.
The Friend played at the 2024 New York Film Festival.
The post NYFF Review: The Friend Amply Portrays Grief with an Admirable Naomi Watts Performance first appeared on The Film Stage.
