This film is set in New York City around the Christmas holidays. All the usual iconography is present: from Jane’s Carousel situated in Dumbo, to the delightful sight of the brownstones facing Washington Square. One of the participants, Iris (Naomi Watts), in this case, resides in one of those two room apartments. What is important about this apartment? It is rent regulated. Anyone who has lived in the West Village understands that when presented this kind of scenario, one would want to die in that apartment. Leaving such a gift, there is simply no way! But there enters Apollo (Bing), the enormous Great Dane who is one of the main side stories in the movie. We then see how Iris, comically, ends up as the caregiver to this massive dog. His old master was Walter (Bill Murray), who possessed many faces, including that of Iris’ writing mentor and best friend, until tragedy struck, and he committed suicide out of the blue. It is clear that everyone has experienced the grief of losing a loved one and it is indeed a heavy pain to carry wherever one goes. It, of course, would be a strain on one’s mental, physical and emotional self. Be of good cheer – this movie is not so bleak as the event whose description seems to give us promise. But this is a film fully and I mean fully laced with drama too.
Because of her grief, Iris’s life has changed. She has to grapple with the breaking challenges that come with owning a dog and of living with it in a city. In a city notorious for its congested residing areas, a 145 pound Great Dane is not an easy dog to handle. This is not an elaborate scheme utilized by people that seek drama, like those that settle on the hallmark when scrolling through channels. Scott McGehee and David Siegel, this is The Friend, which is part of the section New York Film Festival spotlight. A movie that is pretty familiar as it has been made but in different scripts a number of times. However, its trend of being able to almost captivate and sometimes leave modestly surprised throughout the runtime is retained.
Iris was understandably apprehensive about taking in Apollo her worries were justified. To begin with, she is not quite a dog person to begin with. Secondly, her apartment building does not allow any sort of animals. This is more there in the culture of a New York apartment and while a lot of people just ignore that and bring one anyway, this is a rent controlled apartment in West Village. Is it really worth it though? In the end she does so for a different reason: she wants to be reminded of Walter. It also comes courtesy of wedding guilt from Barbara (Noma Dumezweni), Walter’s second wife. In the film, she is one of three of his official wives. That should give off some sort of idea as to what type of character Murray is just by looking at those lines. He doesn’t come in the film a lot but even so, he’s always there. His life, and history, has both been a blessing and a curse to those who loved him. It is the first of many ideas and character traits present in The Friend that should separate this from the rest of the Hallmark pantheon.
To say that it’s interesting how these documentaries make everything glossy and smooth would be an understatement, as The Friend isn’t afraid to go to some dark places. Not every such excursions lead to triumph. But it is this risk that renders this film more appealing than those that for ninety minutes take a much more conservative route. Over the years, The Friend has played more than a few tricks on its audience. As soon as the viewers believe they know everything, McGehee and Siegel seat them in front of the screen a little bit longer with yet another for them quite an unexpected twist.
In this scene, Barbara attempts to transfer the care of Apollo to Iris, which leads her to ask a question that seems to suggest the most interesting aspect in the film. The Friend in due course becomes less centered on a pair of lovers, and more focused on two other Macbeth stories. The first one is quite easy to guess, loss. In a conversation about Apollo, who has grown sad ever since he lost Walter, Barbara asks: “How do you answer the question what happened when the dog was barking in the background?” And here lies the genius of The Friend, its straightforwardness in seeking to respect a dog that has been through emotionally rough times. If anything, and Bing was almost all of it, there was never any reason to explain the concept of death to a dog. Animals are far more intelligent than vain humans would like to think. Subliminally, It seems Apllo grasps the unfolding scenario quite well, however as most humans, it’s a case of him being unable to process everything. The more pertinent question should rather be, “How do you communicate death to a person?” We all know how a heart ceases to beat. But when it comes to coming to terms with the loss of a crucial person and saying goodbye in one’s mind, it is delicately complex. There is no such manual which can be followed entirely. Grieving has and will always be different. In the film The Friend, one could almost argue that Apollo personifies grief.
Grief is often but not always described using the metaphor of a mountain. In a small apartment, if we had to use one word to describe what Apollo looked like during this episode, mountainous seems reasonable. He occupies Iris’s bed, leaving only the floor for her. He shreds her files and personal items. He does not touch food or water. Most of the first parts of the film only show apollo in a state of cuahe with a tShirt belonging to Walter. And many people cannot be with out grieving, it seems to simply be always there, on our shoulders. It is something that accompanies us during our sleep. The Friend is a slow moving story and boarderlines the characters’ emotional range at certain points, but with each turn, the film displays the twins’ coping mechanisms which are heavily influenced by their emotion the only thing that seems to carry the plot forward. The intricacy, together with insanity brought by Apollo’s comic actions is what This is a story which I, unfortunately, have seen too many times.
However, it is what it seeks to accomplish in spite of that knowledge that is most intriguing. This is really a film about ordinary people going through ordinary events. This is a concept that Iris does in fact touch upon at one point. It’s also the second theme around which McGehee and Siegel set the story in their film.
When away from her writing and calls to her students, Iris is the professor. It’s common to see the group of students practicing some exercises with one another. The most common. Self evaluation. One of Owen Teague’s students, who mainly specializes in fantasy writing, berates another student who is studying about the ordinary. To the student, evaluating “the image of an ordinary person” seems pointless. Or rather, aren’t there enough aggravations in existence already? Well, in any case, such stories are important! And The Friend is one such story about which it may be said that this type of story is in high demand. It is essential for audiences to watch movies such as The Friend, which do not necessitate an extraordinary idea, as they frequently forget about the normality of life while going through the motions of everyday existence. Yes, many of us endure an episode that appears to separate us from the world. And then a gentle reminder that things like this happen all the time and everywhere comes along. Everything considered, there is a very dull and utterly cliched version of The Friend. And while The Friend may lack the climactic fury typical for resolution of this type of film, McGehee and Siegel manage to hold important, interesting thematics of The Friend all the way to the end credits.
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