The Friend

 “What’s going to happen to the dog?”

Writerly, overlong but subtly profound, The Friend is a slow paced but warmly emotional exploration of a wo(man)’s best friend - both furry and fleshed - as she journeys through grief and creative frustration towards hope and recovery with a fantastic Naomi Watts at its core, navigating a messy story. 

Discussion Points:

For a film about writers and editors, I wish the film was better written and edited. Sadly too long, and poorly paced - the film feels like it was going to end 30 minutes early only to tack on another 20 minutes of story. But Naomi Watts is fantastic, alongside the rest of the ensemble, the heart is in the right place and there’s lots of cute dogs 🐕! It’s a film that steadily creeps up on you and ultimately delivers a profound and impactful reflection of grief, loss, and legacy - but it takes a long winding messy distracted route to get there. Side plots and side characters feel like literary appendixes that are superfluous to the main story at play. On the one hand, they work within a story about how suicide is a quick end for its committer, and a long painful journey for those it affects. But the film feels far less interested in exploring that, and instead is more about the impact of pet companions and mental health. There is definitely overlap, but it’s so messily compiled that it lacks full punch. But the final 30 minutes is maybe the most succinct and consistent part of the film, and easily could’ve happened 30 minutes earlier in a tighter edit. Overall, when the film hits its marks it’s really affective and profound, but it’s sadly inconsistent and doesn’t hit as often as it should.