Friendship (2024) Was Great
Here's why I think people don't get it.
The movie Friendship (2024) dir. Adam DeYoung hits like a late-in-life autism diagnosis. Way too fucking real.
It’s a drama, a comedy, a thriller, and a horror flick that follows the doomed friendship of two middle-aged men living in the same cul-de-sac. Former SNL writer Tim Robinson, who permanently changed my vocal patterns with the Netflix comedy show I Think You Should Leave, stars as Craig Waterman, an awkward but passionate man dog-paddling against a tide of mediocrity. He encounters Paul Rudd’s Austin Carmichael, the coolest suburban man imaginable. As their friendship blossoms, Craig’s impulsivity and sensitivity to rejection causes him to lash out at Austin, eventually tanking the tentative relationship. It’s funny and dramatic without sacrificing depth and sincerity, and I was rocked to my core by the end.
What first struck me about the film was its capacity to explore social anxiety in a safe space. I’ve said before that the appeal of horror is to experiment with fear, trauma, and other ‘unpleasant’ feelings in a vacuum; what’s so wonderful about a horror movie is that it, at some point, ends. You know this in your rational mind. Life ends too, but you don’t get to talk about it at a bar afterwards – as far as any of us know. Friendship ends, mercifully. Its series of excruciating faux pas comes to a close. But the topic of the movie is a part of all of our lives, and it will always be: our desire to be connected with each other. In that sense, it was scarier than a horror movie. Yes, the movie ends, but its subject matter is intertwined with the fabric of existence. There is no escaping Friendship.
Another reason I’ve thought so much about this movie is because other people I know disliked it. Well – not ‘disliked’, but ‘didn’t rate it highly’. When I left the theatre, my partner and I started our discussion by questioning what our friends hadn’t enjoyed. We admitted that there were some pacing problems, and that the movie felt unfinished at the end, but one beer later, I had convinced us both that these were part of the film’s design. I’ll explain this soon, but first, I want to step back and observe how my reaction back-seated to my friends’ opinions.
At several points, Craig Waterman is working on making apps more addictive at a large, faceless company. He repeats that in order to do so, the user should feel “judged or expressed” to keep them coming back. Judged or expressed is a mantra for the film. I can think of no more appropriate way to leave a Friendship showing than by asking yourself, “what did my buddies think of this?”, a question that symbolizes fear of conflict, desire for connection, and ultimately, trying to navigate whether something will be judged or expressed. Will my opinion be judged? Or will I get to express it? Fortunately, unlike Craig, I have this newsletter, and the only people who read it adore me, so I don’t have to worry about that… right?
One theory I had about why my friends’ ratings weren’t higher was that, as an A24 film, there’s a certain expectation of seriousness. The production company isn’t known for their comedies, but for gritty, experimental horror and tight, gripping thrillers, druggie and occult and alt. Friendship is all of the above, but it conceals its intentions with light beats, unexpected turns – jokes! Much like its protagonist, the movie reacts to intensity with humor. For instance, the ‘drug scene’ of this movie, instead of an acid-kaleidescope-explosion or a Midsommar-style wooziness, Craig Waterman licks a Sonoran desert toad and is magically transported to a Subway, where he orders a ham sandwich. Nothing else happens. His sandwich artist is Paul Rudd with some crazy hair, and Craig decides to be wild and have his sandwich toasted, but then he wakes up, sober, with no great revelation, even though he was told this was supposed to give him answers.
Now, this is hilarious, original, and thus far, the only excuseable product shoehorn I’ve seen on the big screen. But, audience members like to have their expectations fulfilled.
The three-act, popcorn movie structure that has dominated cinema for decades gives us lots of examples. Where Little Shop of Horrors (1986) dir. Frank Oz was meant to end with the protagonist being murdered and alien plants taking over the world, as is the case in the Broadway show, the audience was upset at this – ‘an icebox’, Oz said– and they changed it to a more Hollywood-type ending. The plant is destroyed, Audrey I and Seymour are married, and everyone lives happily ever after. In movies, this is equivalent to having the actors come out and take a bow. It spares the audience grief. Now, in a movie where the entire thesis is that exploitation scales as it is fed and has overcome the world by playing off people’s greed, this ending sucks - it spares the audience truth.
We have to balance things, since movies are, at the end of the day, entertainment, but I can’t enjoy an ending that sacrifices truthfulness.
Friendship, as Tim Robinson’s first film, is thankfully disinterested in the audience-pleasing formula. Although we watch Craig Waterman try, and fail, and try, and fail, and try, and fail, there is never a moment where he succeeds, even at the end. It’s a descent into madness, but a madness that doesn’t lend itself to a visually remarkable cinematic climax, like Black Swan (2010) dir. Darren Aronofsky or American Psycho (2000) dir. Mary Harron. The climax is stunning and heartbreaking, in its own way: Craig, with a gun he accidentally stole from Austin, enters his house to try and reintegrate with the people he’s alienated. “I do one strange thing and that’s it?” he asks them as he begs for a second chance, which is (of course) denied.
The ‘strange thing’ Craig did, for those who are (inexplicably) reading this review without watching the film, was he punched Austin twice – they were boxing and he hit him during the interim, when they weren’t actually going. He most likely did so from the same emotional, aggressive place that rules over him in other scenes: while they were boxing, Austin was much better than Craig, and had gotten him pretty bad in the nose during the first round. Feeling sensitive, excluded, and physically in pain, Craig impulsively strikes Austin before the next round actually begins. Austin crumples to the ground and his other friends crowd around in concern. Then Craig puts soap in his mouth and tries to joke about it being his punishment for his fuck-up. The party breaks up after that, and Austin starts distancing himself from Craig.
It’s possible that audience members, my friends included, were dismayed, heartbroken, crushed by Craig’s failure and lack of redemption. They wanted him to beat the monster and win and live happily ever after. I don’t say that to make the argument that audiences prefer saccharine endings, but to make the argument that Robinson wrote and played Craig with the utmost empathy. Even though he commits numerous crimes across the runtime, he’s a distant dad, and a difficult husband, the audience still wants him to be happy. Alternatively, people may have struggled to enjoy a film that repeatedly misdirects and languishes in each unexpected beat. I can easily see someone annoyed by the Subway drug trip – anticipating effects, music, a rousing message to lift us out of the heartbreaking narrative, and receiving a boring commercial instead. But, to that person I just made up in my head, I say that you have experienced exactly what Craig did in that moment.
Not to linger on the trip segment (it was one of my favorite scenes) but it felt more realistic to life than most other psychedelic representations in media. While it’s true that I’ve never had such a normal trip, I have been told by people that hallucinogens will unlock secret parts of the mind, change me, give me answers, and upon taking them, I’ve learned that none of those things will happen. I may have a great time, but I’m going to sober up and I’ll still be the same person I was before. Not only is this scene funny, in the sense that it isn’t expected, it’s clever and right: there are no deep, secret answers at the bottom of the psychedelic well. Friendship won’t pretend there is, even if it would be satisfying for the audience – or helpful for Craig.
I said earlier that the pacing felt off and the ending left things unfinished. These may not have been deliberate choices (who’s to say?) but they didn’t interfere with my enjoyment of the movie. The odd pacing, which I first put down to this being a directorial debut, is because of the never-ending trying-and-failing and the constant misery that befalls Craig as a result. Where most people are used to one second act drop, this movie has somewhere between five and ten moments when everything seems to be absolutely fucked. But, like life, the story keeps going even when something terrible has happened. You can see this philosophy echoed in the very first scene, where they establish that Mrs. Waterman recently recovered from cancer. For a lot of people, cancer is a big story in their lives. Whether it affected you or someone close to you, it probably took up a lot of space in your thoughts. When that story ends, the world doesn’t end – it just keeps going. In this first scene, Tammy and Craig are in a support group discussing life after cancer. Tammy says that despite being in remission, she still has a lot of anxiety about the cancer coming back. Her story ended in remission, but her story didn’t actually end. She’s still here, still coping with the fallout of an enormous life event.
Am I saying that a movie playing with pace is always lifelike and therefore always a masterpiece? No! But when a movie stokes a feeling of liveliness and reality, to me, it’s at least masterful. It isn’t easy to create a work of fiction that reflects the material truth of the world, deliberately and unflinchingly.
Which brings us to the ending of Friendship.
As Craig waves the gun around, Austin’s toupee falls off his head. Even though Craig has lost his mind a little, he still wants Austin to like him. He still wants to be his friend. So he demands everyone else get down on the ground, where they won’t be able to see Austin’s bald head, and subtly indicates for him to put the hairpiece back on. Afterwards, when the cops have been called and Craig is sitting in the back of the police car, Austin turns to look at him – and winks. Craig’s face is beaming with joy. This moment, this last frame of the movie, when Craig is open-mouth smiling, on the verge of tears, so, so happy to be acknowledged by Austin even as he’s being arrested, made my heart hurt. I badly wanted to believe that Austin wouldn’t press charges, that Craig would find some way out of the situation, that they would somehow be friends after all of this. And I knew, at the same time, that none of those things would happen. There are no answers at the bottom of the psychedelic well, and there is no friendship after pointing a gun at someone.
On another note, this ending comes at a strange time. After the emotional climax (sort of) where Craig loses his wife in the sewers and is divorced and fired from his job, we see him with his son on his birthday, some unknown amount of time later. We watch as Craig stands up for his ex-wife at a restaurant; he bought her the car he always should’ve; things seem to be improving.
But, on their way back to the house, Craig sees that Austin bought the car he’d promised they’d go for a drive in. While Craig bought a car for his ex-wife to repair his failure, Austin bought an expensive car he’d always wanted — and Craig will never ride in it. He goes inside, flirts with his ex-wife, and once again, things seem to be improving. It’s on his way out of the house to get candles for the birthday cake that he snaps. The unresolved rejection and pain from their ended friendship all explodes at once. It’s jarring and raw and disappointing. You see him repairing his life and learning how to be direct with people, but the unfinished narrative haunts him still; he has to close it out, and he lacks the skills to do it gracefully.
Much like real life, as we take steps to improve, we also backslide, relapse, ruminate, and ideate. As we learn how to confront our problems with others, we also have to learn to be responsible for our actions, and measured in our approach. If we don’t, we spill into the hyper-confrontational.
Craig’s story didn’t end with him being divorced and fired, no more than Tammy’s story ended with remission. This film takes a devastatingly human, lifelike approach, by ruining Craig even after he has been ruined and is in the process of rebuilding. Its unfairness, its strange pace, its uncanny jokes, what it chooses to include, is not necessarily what I love about it, it’s that these things are all there in pursuit of being more like life. In a world where stories are treated like escapist fantasy, a 90-minute power trip, or a new set of clothes to put your blorbo in, a movie like this, which offers no escape, no power, and only sells from the Ocean View Dining catalogue, is a revelation.