By Joe O’Shansky
I, for one, hope we’re all familiar with Tim Robinson and his Netflix opus I Think You Should Leave. The guy is a master of cringey chaos, a walking social accident waiting to happen. The question is, how does that carry over to a feature where Robinson and Paul Rudd, not unknown for his comedic chops, become friends?
As it turns out, very well. Because while Friendship is Robinson’s film, to the degree that you’re expecting him to be him, there’s a lot more going on. It’s not just a feature length episode of I Think You Should Leave (at least not totally), or even a semi-remake of The Cable Guy. Writer/director Andrew DeYoung has crafted something in an adjacent nexus, and turns it all into his own anxiety-laden, mid-life crisis vision of loneliness, disconnection and emotional entropy.
And, yeah, somehow that’s really fucking funny.
Robinson is Craig, a marketing executive who, with his wife, Tami (Kate Mara) and son Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer) are about to sell their house and move elsewhere. They inadvertently receive a package for a new neighbor, Austin (Rudd), a local weatherman. Craig delivers the parcel and they strike up an immediate bromance, despite Craig’s impending move. Love blossoms until it doesn’t, which winds up being the consistent theme. Afterwards, it gets weirder. Like a lot.
I’m being vague (sort of), and most of that is in the trailer, but the joys of not knowing what you’re getting yourself into when it comes to a movie like Friendship pays massive dividends. An aggressively mumblecore/absurdist black comedy that might look like a Duplass flick to some, something like Jeff, Who Lives at Home, but DeYoung is channeling a metal indie aesthetic that is total anti-comedy. Think Neil Hamburger, but even more sad, where a Slipknot song becomes a narrative device.
I mean, there’s a lot here. Not just a satire of bro culture, or corporate culture, or familial dynamics. “You guys kiss on the lips?” Craig says as he seems to realize for the first time that his wife and possible son kiss on the lips. The film buries the lede as to why Craig is the way he is (I have a theory), and moments like that, when you begin to think maybe Craig doesn’t really know Steven or his family, all of that, along with the pressures of being a marketing exec, which sounds like the worst fucking job on earth, that all throws his mental centrifuge into chaos. His center can’t hold, and he does everything he knows to correct that, to connect, often with heartbreaking consequences. I’m not particularly prone to feeling anxiety (unless I’m paying attention to the real world), but Robinson induces a cortisol overdose like I haven’t felt since Sandler in Uncut Gems.
In that regard the performances are damn near perfect. DeYoung got exactly what he wanted from his cast, Rudd, Robinson and Mara, and it’s hard to think of a more singular vision for what goes down. Kinda like Jody Hill, DeYoung knows exactly what he wants to make and it’s going to be specific. On paper, yes, Rudd and Robinson being frenemies seems easy, let’s put that in the Apatow pipeline, or whatever. It almost writes itself. But Friendship is much more than the sum of its parts.
The arthouse verite thing only serves to magnify the low key anxiety of its autonomous yet warmly human characters, making their own life-changing decisions, whether it’s the weatherman changing shifts, a wife who wants to get back to where she started, or a neurodivergent father who goes down the rabbit hole of never knowing if ruining everything is normal because he doesn't have the capacity to know it’s not funny (the irony being that it’s hilarious). Ultimately what I love is that sense of realizing that you’re on a ride with all of them, and you have no idea where we’re all going.
8/10