TIFF 2024 | Movie Review: “The Friend” Will Melt The Hearts of Any Pet Owner
7/12 ForReel Score | 3/5 Stars
Trigger Warning: This article contains discussions of heavy topics like suicide in relation to the film’s content.
With The Friend being one of two films at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival with the term “friend” baked right into the title, the theme was certainly potent at this year’s festival (you can find my colleague’s take on the Tim Robinson-lead cringe comedy Friendship here). Here in The Friend - a more emotionally stirring perspective on the topic - Bill Murray briefly shares the screen with Naomi Watts and a Great Dane named Bing as Watts learns to care for the dog after Murray’s character suddenly passes away. While incredibly familiar and relatively conventional overall, The Friend is enjoyable enough thanks to its breezy runtime and a stellar performance by Bing, who makes his Hollywood debut in the film.
Image courtesy of TIFF
Over the years, Naomi Watts has starred in a few questionable projects, like Lakewood, which also premiered at TIFF in 2021, the Divergent franchise, and the infamously lousy film The Book of Henry. Luckily for Watts and directors Scott McGhee and David Siegel, The Friend isn’t one of those. Vaguely set during Christmas in New York City, a powerful setting combination for any film, The Friend follows Iris (Watts), a closed-off writer struggling with the loss of her mentor, Walter (Murray), who now finds herself taking care of his Great Dane, Apollo (Bing). What starts as a temporary placement while she waits for a better candidate to present themselves slowly becomes a friendship neither Iris nor Apollo can live without.
If reading that brief synopsis had you rolling your eyes, this movie isn’t for you. However, if you’re a pet owner or enjoy a low-stakes story with some food for thought, then The Friend will be a thoroughly enjoyable experience. This melancholy dramedy has all the sentimental cheese its premise promises but with a ton of genuine heart and unexpected commentary on grief, friendship, and suicide. What’s more surprising is that the film’s questionable two-hour runtime is shockingly brisk and warranted as Naomi Watts explains grief to a dog– a challenging task for anyone.
Bing and Watts aren’t the only two performers who do a tremendous job carrying The Friend. Bill Murray is another standout in his limited screen time, especially towards the film’s end when Iris has a fictitious but cathartic conversation with Walter, confronting him with all the grievances that usually surround Murray’s on- and off-screen personas. Carla Gugino and Constance Wu are also impressive as Walter’s ex-wife and widowed girlfriend. They both chew up all the scenery.
I will be the first to admit that The Friend is as conventional as these movies come. Every plot point is highly predictable– except for how long it takes for Iris to realize that she can apply for a support animal license when her landlord threatens to kick her out for having Apollo in a no-pets-allowed apartment building. Still, those of us who enjoy these crowd-pleasing canine flicks don’t show up for the plot. We watch them because we want to feel something. The Friend shines in that regard, more so than others in this genre. It might take some time to come to this conclusion while watching, but audiences will be won over near the end of the film when Iris attends a therapy session with Apollo to work out their issues. In this standout scene, Iris tells her therapist that she “feels like [she’s] the emotional support human,” putting into question who the film’s title refers to.
Any pet owner, including myself, will tell you they want their beloved animal to live as long as they do. As Iris puts it in the movie, “Anything less than that is unfair.” The Friend poetically highlights that having a pet is a two-way street; like us, they too experience complex emotions like grief and heartache when they lose someone they love. It may be too schmaltzy for its own good, but that doesn’t make The Friend less of an enjoyable experience for anyone who values the power of two or four-legged friendships.