Film Review: FRIENDSHIP (2024): A Pitch Black Comedy Which Frustrates Just as Much as it Makes the Viewer Laugh

Friendship Review

Friendship (2024) Film Review, a movie written and directed by Andrew DeYoung and starring Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd, Kate Mara, Jack Dylan Grazer, Rick Worthy, Whitmer Thomas, Daniel London, Jacob Ming-Trent, Billy Bryk, Meredith Garretson, Ari Dalbert, Josh Segarra, Raphael Sbarge, Omar Torres, Jason Veasey, Jon Glaser and Carmen Christopher.

Filmmaker Andrew DeYoung’s relentless new dark comedy, Friendship, often feels like a variation on themes from 1996’s The Cable Guy where Jim Carrey’s stalker cable guy character latched on to the customer played by Matthew Broderick, and all hell broke loose. This new picture doesn’t always make 100% sense in terms of the way its lead characters think, yet it is still 100% entertaining to watch. However, there is the problem of how frustrated the lead actor, Tim Robinson, could make an audience member. Robinson ably portrays the disturbed Craig, his character, as the biggest ass of all-time. It is to the actor’s credit that Robinson is plausible in the role and one may wish his character had looked for mental health treatment way before certain key events of the film transpire during the picture’s dark conclusion.

Paul Rudd assumes the Matthew Broderick role from The Cable Guy. Well, more or less. The kicker here is that Robinson’s character, Craig, is the one with the seemingly happy marriage. Picture Craig as his own worst enemy as he tries to make friends with Austin (Rudd) who is his neighbor down the block as well as the local TV weatherman. Craig succeeds in befriending Austin who takes him through some sort of sewer in a male-bonding exercise that is weird and creepy and later repeats itself in the film when Craig tries to re-enact the same scenario with his cancer-surviving wife, Tami (Kate Mara has never been better). Jack Dylan Grazer co-stars in the movie and serves as Steven, Craig and Tami’s son.

Tim Robinson is completely and utterly annoying in the role of Craig, but viewers will feel sorry for the pathetic loser he is becoming– one whose house is currently up for sale as his wife hustles with a home-based flower business to help them pay the bills. Friendship opens with a support group where Tami makes it known that the group is helping her, but Craig makes the therapy about him and, thus, makes us hate him almost right from the film’s outset.

Rudd is funny and sort of plausible as the guy who is floating through life with fleeting bouts of success. We eventually learn that Austin wears a hair piece to cover the fact that he is balding and he is secretly almost as pathetic as Craig is. Rudd walks a tightrope here in this performance between being overly friendly and, ultimately, too unsympathetic towards Craig. Rudd is one of the most versatile actors working today and succeeds many times over in this role.

This movie really takes off when it shows a cell phone store salesman trying to sell Craig an “experience” for $100. Craig takes him up on the offer. Craig is forced to kiss a toad and ends up hallucinating that he’s in a Subway fast food restaurant in one of the movie’s hysterical set pieces. Austin is there in the vision too, and the less that is said about this scene, the better, because it’s downright hysterical to behold.

Craig ruins his own job, his marriage and his friendship with Austin by being the biggest “A-word” you could imagine. Surprisingly, the viewer may sympathize with Craig’s predicament and wish he gets mental help immediately. This picture shifts gears when Craig takes his wife into the same tunnel of sewers that Austin took him through. The wife disappears and the movie becomes immensely frustrating since we’re never really told what, exactly, happened to her other than that she had an orgasm. That may be the movie’s biggest disappointment.

In the initial stages, Robinson and Rudd are fabulous in terms of their rapport together. They create a believable bond before it goes off the rails when Craig puts a bar of soap in his mouth and starts to oddly suck on it. Craig also breaks Austin’s glass door as well during a party he attends there. Obviously, Austin doesn’t like when Craig sneaks to his job to visit him on the spur of the moment either. Craig is just like “the cable guy.” He’s friendly when he wants to be, but he’s mostly just a major pain in the ass. Robinson’s performance is a true original, though. Let it be said, this is nothing close to an imitation of Carrey’s characterization in The Cable Guy.

Kate Mara shines in her part here as well as the long-suffering wife. She adds humor, dignity and heart to her role. In one of the film’s most hilarious bits, Tami ends up on Austin’s weather show to promote her flower business and that pisses Craig off a bit — to be certain. Friendship gets heavy at times, but is always full of laughs that are earned and justified within the context of the film’s plot.

Other than things the movie leaves out about Tami’s trip through the tunnel and a few annoying aspects of key plot points, Friendship is a very good movie. Paul Rudd doesn’t get as much screen time as Robinson, yet Rudd makes his character a winning creation that could have you rooting for his character if you do, in fact, understand him. It’s hard to relate to anyone who is a male in the movie at all, but Friendship is a humorous look at what not to do when trying to make ever-lasting friends. It’s way out there, yet I liked it more than I thought I would. Plus, who hasn’t had a friend that you wished would just go away? If you were ever in that boat, this movie is certainly for you.

Rating: 7.5/10

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