In The Friend, Naomi Watts co-stars with Bill Murray and a Great Dane, but it is the Great Dane who steals the show.  Sure, The Friend has all the hallmarks of a Hallmark movie — Christmas in New York, a dog’s owner dies, and Iris (Naomi Watts) has to take the dog, despite her misgivings.  But hey, this is an exalted Hallmark movie, at least that’s my excuse for my face full of tears.  That’s no spoiler — I’m not saying anything tragic happened to the dog — those were tears of empathy and joy.  How many actors can achieve that?  Well, we’re going to need a new Academy Award acting category — Best Dog — and Bing, the dog who plays Apollo, is going to win it.
The structure of The Friend is interesting.  Bill Murray’s character, Walter, is dead at the beginning of the movie by suicide.  He was a writer and professor and a bit of a cad.  At his funeral, there’s quite a collection of ex-wives, lovers, and friends, all gossiping about one another but never really blaming him for his actions.  His widow Barbara (Noma Dumezweni) doesn’t want the dog, and Walter stipulated that it should go to his best friend Iris.  Of course, Iris is not really a dog person and has a rent-controlled apartment that doesn’t allow dogs.
The drama here is pretty straightforward and light — will Iris be able to find a home for Apollo or keep him?  But it is the overarching context in which this is happening that elevates the film from fluff — how do we deal with grief?  There have been thousands of films about how humans grapple with a loss.  But how does a dog deal with his owner dying?  I am serious when I say that Apollo is a fully flawed character and the heart and soul of the film.  Can you imagine the audacity to make a movie that hinges on the performance of a dog?  And yet directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel have done that here, and it is truly something unique and wonderful.  The duo also co-wrote the film, based on a novel by Sigrid Nunez.
“…Christmas in New York, a dog’s owner dies, and Iris has to take the dog…”
A secondary plotline is about how Iris and Walter became friends.  Were they lovers?  Iris is a sort of mother figure to Walter’s grown daughter, who some of the wives have never met.  How did all of this come about?  Slowly, through flashbacks, Iris’s backstory is filled out.
Walter’s character is a bit less fleshed out, but this is by design.  We never really find out why he committed suicide, but of course, in the real world, that is often the case.  The survivors are left to wonder what happened and what they could have done differently, complicating their grief.  It can be difficult to dramatize internal dialog and doubts, but The Friend does a remarkable job of this in a fanciful scene that is parts moving, surreal, heartfelt, funny, and wrenching.
The Friend is situated in a weird spot in terms of its intended audience.  On the one hand, a heartwarming movie about a dog set at Christmas could potentially become a holiday classic.  But then again, themes of suicide and moral complexity don’t exactly fit with that vibe.  I’m glad it isn’t my job to decide how to position a movie for the market.  I’m just glad that somebody is making high-quality movies for adults with dogs.
The Friend played at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.