Film Review: Friendship

Friendship
Director: Andrew DeYoung
BoulderLight Pictures, Fifth Season
In Theaters: 05.23.25

I’m a big fan of Jim Carrey’s The Cable Guy. One problem: The studio gutted it, and the final product was a tragically simplified ‘90s comedy that lacked the horror it craved. Andrew DeYoung’s (Would It Kill You to Laugh?, Our Flag Means Death) feature-length debut Friendship is an unofficial A24 remake of The Cable Guy from the stalker’s perspective.

Friendship follows the short lived, one-sided bromance between white collar recluse Craig Waterman (Tim Robinson, I Think You Should Leave, Detroiters) and charismatic weatherman Austin Carmichael (Paul Rudd, This is 40, Ant-Man). After a breakdown in front of Austin’s friends, their relationship is terminated, and Craig’s growing desperation to win Austin back spirals his life out of control.

DeYoung’s screenplay is, to be dramatic, genius. The film industry has never recovered from the decline of the studio comedies of the ‘90s. These are comedy films with typical drama plots (romantic ones, usually) with extraordinarily boring morals (don’t be an asshole, usually — because assholes are funny, I guess). Films like High Fidelity or your pick of classic Adam Sandler comedies fit the bill: just basic stuff worth a watch once in your lifetime, with one truly iconic scene that you’ll rewatch on YouTube every now and again just to laugh without the added baggage of a mind-numbing plot.

But sometimes, from out of nowhere, comes a film where the humor serves the plot. Where the bizarre, otherworldly occurrences actually affect the characters. These are comedies worth watching more than once. Friendship uses its unbelievable sense of humor to trick you. Each scene starts with the promise of change — the promise that this guy can make new friends or chill out, only for the punchline to be that he never does. The universe seemingly works against him in bizarre ways to push him even further. It’s unpredictable and wild and nuts, like that new Marvel movie that just came out.

Robinson loves unhinged weirdos. His sketches from I Think You Should Leave usually center on his character’s frantic outbursts because of some mundane problem he’s blown out of proportion, and that’s exactly what he’s doing here, only with a more sinister twist. It’s somehow relatable, even if it’s a guy shoving soap in his mouth while whimpering, “I’ve been a bad boy.” Rudd plays a stupidly handsome weatherman fairly well, though his performance reminded me too much of his character in the Anchorman films, Brian Fantana. Still, he’s doing a solid job here, even if his face and awesome mustache are doing all the talking.

There was a time that saying something “looks like an A24 film” was a compliment. They were often the most visually bizarre films in the industry for a while, but as time has marched on, the look has become almost commercialized. Every film looks like an A24 film, which is a net positive, I guess, considering how low visual standards were for most films going into the 2000s, but it really hurts this film for me. There are a lot of stylistic choices I love — the psychedelic imagery, Kubrick-esque slow zooms and infrequent uses of illuminated geometry that made me cream my pants — but overall, it looks generically A24.

However, Keegan DeWitt’s soundtrack is perfect. The blend of choir chanting and synthetic bliss makes every scene worth seeing for the music alone.

Friendship is, so far, my favorite film of the year. It is definitely the most creative film I’ve seen this year. An outstanding central performance, a sense of humor that moves the plot forward instead of halting it for one joke, a soundtrack that I will be listening to independent of the film and Rudd’s sick mustache really makes this worth the price of admission. —B. Allan Johnson

Read more film reviews:
Film Review: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Film Review: The Surfer