Last week, I went to the Angelika Film Center in New York City to see The Friend, a 2024 dramedy written and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel (The Deep End; What Maisie Knew; Bee Season), based on the novel by Sigrid Nunez. It stars Naomi Watts as Iris, a writer and college professor living in Greenwich Village in her late father's rent-controlled apartment on Washington Place, whose longtime friend Walter, a fellow writer and professor who has been married three times, suddenly dies by suicide, and unbeknownst to her, made her the "continency plan" to take care of his five-year old, 150-lb Great Dane, Apollo. Iris learns about this from one of his ex-wives, and despite that her building doesn't allow dogs, and that she doesn't want this responsibility while she is still grieving the loss of her friend, she takes in Apollo, who proceeds to take over her bed and trash her home when she's out, as when Iris comes in, a neighbor (Ann Dowd) knowingly says, "He missed you," meaning he was likely barking and howling so the neighbors could hear. The super warns Iris about no dogs, not wanting management to evict her and make her lose her rent-controlled cheap apartment.
Iris is struggling with taking care of this dog, who is grieving the loss of Walter like she is, through some particular good animal acting by Bing, like sitting and listening to Walter's writings being read aloud or howling at the ceremony when Walter's ashes are spread over water. Iris didn't ask for this, and doesn't like that her friends treat her as a charity case, telling her she lives in a "shoebox" (when her apartment as a studio/1 bedroom is much larger and more spacious than average NYC apartments today), and as she tries to find a permanent home for Apollo while feeling guilty that she can't take care of him like Walter entrusted her to do, she is coming to terms with her grief, with her anger over Walter's decision, and knowing the dog is one of her last connections to Walter. She is also left to edit his unfinished novel, as well as dealing with Walter's three wives, and his adult daughter who suddenly showed up in the picture, all with their own individual histories with him.
I felt the movie was long at two hours, and there were several times in the last quarter of it when I kept thinking it would end, but it would continue. Despite that, I liked the movie as a drama about grief, writing, dogs, and friendship. Naomi Watts was wonderful to watch in the film, especially in a scene when she meets with a therapist to try to have the dog registered as an emotional support animal so she can keep him in a last-ditch effort, and she delivers some marvelous acting when venting about her grief and sadness and anger about Walter and her history with him.
When I saw the film on March 28th, there was a Q&A afterwards with Scott McGehee, David Siegel, and Naomi Watts, talking about the film and finding the right dog for Apollo, selecting Bing after a nation wide search. Watts talked about how she had two 20-minute sessions a day with Apollo, in order for him to slowly get used to her, and how she as a dog person had to play someone who isn't fond of dogs, and improvising along with him in scenes when he wasn't acting, like a scene where she argues with a security guard who won't allow dogs in the building, and the dog just sat down, so she sat down too, going along with it.
It was nice seeing Carla Gugino in the film as one of Walter's ex-wives, as I've always liked her. Bill Murray himself was fine, but his image to me has been more tainted with allegations of him being abusive to several people, both professionally and personally, and him forcing a kiss on Naomi Watts during the press tour, when she just got married last year to Billy Crudup, makes him more odious to me, so I don't have much positive to say about him.
I would recommend the film as a decent drama starring Naomi Watts and a regal, beautiful dog played by Bing the Great Dane.
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