Friendship

At first glance, Friendship plays like it's gearing up to be a quirky indie comedy - awkward banter, strained smiles, and just enough charm to make you think you're in for a sad-sack buddy flick with heart. But then something shifts. Slowly. Quietly. And by the time the third act rolls around, you realize you're not watching a comedy at all. You're watching a slow-motion car wreck of emotional codependence and social decay - and you're in the passenger seat.

The film's real trick (and possibly its curse) is how it messes with your sympathy. I started off feeling sorry for Robinson's character - lonely, vulnerable, maybe a little pathetic. But as the story peeled back layers, that pity curdled into discomfort. Then resentment. Then something colder. And yet, by the end, I still wasn't sure if I hated him or just hated how much of him I recognized.

That emotional whiplash is probably the movie's greatest strength - and maybe its biggest obstacle. This is not a film that wants you to feel good. It wants you to squirm. It wants you to sit in the tension between wanting to help someone and realizing you might be feeding the very dysfunction you're trying to escape. That's powerful. It's also exhausting.

The writing is sharp, but it doesn't hold your hand. The pacing is deliberate (read: slow), the tone slippery, and the morality murky. You can tell this film wants to be part of the post-Anora wave - intimate, raw, and morally complex - but it lacks Anora's clarity and brutal elegance. Instead, Friendship smudges the lines until everything feels a little too fuzzy to fully land.

If Friendship is about anything, it might be this: the strange, sad reasons we keep toxic people in our lives. Loneliness. Obligation. Habit. Fear of what comes after letting go. It's a film that doesn't provide answers - just a long, uncomfortable mirror.

I give it a 6.5 out of 10. It's well-made. It's interesting. It hits hard. But it also left me more overwrought than enlightened. There's value in that, sure - but I'm not in a hurry to go through it again.

When it comes to the topic of the male psyche and what inherently makes us male, the usual trope falls into the typical realm of heroism, stoicism and aggression. You can't get that woman you like unless you are willing to take on an army and exhibit confidence in the moment. Trouble is, the so-called man that needs that confidence is played by men like Henry Cavil or Ryan Gosling, not some every day run of the mill man.

Much like another film that tackled the male psyche that came out last year, that being A Different Man, Friendship tackles another side of the equation. While A Different Man dealt with identity and accepting your true self, Friendship is a bizarre comedy tackling why it is so hard to make friends. Tim Robinson plays Craig Waterman, a lonely, somewhat self centered man who has no filter and extremely poor social skills. He lacks emotional maturity and also self awareness about his grating personality. It's hard to imagine how he got married and stayed so for 16 years, but that is besides the point. We get a sense that Craig's schtick has grown tired as his wife is visibly having an emotional affair with an old ex and his son is becoming more and more distant. His lack of self awareness is meant to illustrate his loneliness is not because of awkwardness or because of social anxiety, but because his personality is completely devoid of modern mores. The good thing is the film doesn't blame this attitude due to a condition or due to past trauma, we are to assume he has always been this way. Then he meets Austin, played with usual charm by Paul Rudd.

In a lot of ways, Austin is the ideal man when we first meet him. Self assured, smooth and free. Unlike the corporatized Craig, he introduces a new world to Craig filled with friendship, connection and emotional availability. Trouble is, Craig is ill prepared to morph into this world of friendship. His mental state declines, all the while seeing how a man should deal with the pressures society puts on some men. While Austin struggles at first with his new change in life, he ultimately evens out and finds a way to deal with his promotion at work... like an actualized and emotional mature man should act. Craig on the other hand descends into an immature boy, seeking out creature comforts and trying to recapture an older version of himself rather than dealing with a new and evolving situation.

The final act is where much of Craig's disintegration occurs. He even states men shouldn't even have friends to begin with. Of course, this all plays out in a deeply sad string of events for Craig, leading to a shocking finale.

Now, I don't consider this an all encompassing foray into the world or men and how to build friendships, but it certainly is more realistic than another Rudd vehicle like I Love You Man. While much of society dismisses the struggles many men endure, the toughest has to be with male bonding. There is a reason why the alt-right is rife with angry men and some of the worst opinions are held by men. The lack of emotional maturity has made it easy to recruit these types, giving them a support mechanism that becomes "habit forming." Becoming a part of a team and then getting kicked off that team can be gut wrenching to many, especially if you don't have another "team" to jump into. And then you have an example like Craig Waterman, a man with no capability of reading a room and has most likely been hanging on by a thread for years. While I'm a completely different person, I feel his loneliness. Being an atheist tree hugging vegan in a small right wing town that loves hunting and steak, I've been something of a prisoner of my own doing. It's not that I really can't make friends, but who is going to relate to me when I tell a gun loving, fly fishing conservative that I don't eat steak due to an ethical philosophy I adopted years before. How does a man that loves Art, film and philosophy relate to people who aren't as educated on these subjects without coming off as a massive elitist? It would probably be like the moment Austin tells Craig he doesn't want to be friends after a rather awkward and unsettling moment occurs between them.

While Craig is definitely a man forged by his own experiences, you still feel bad for him. It's clear he doesn't fit anywhere in the world, and hence his outbursts become more and more outrageous as he finally understands this. But that is the quandary. Men have been taught individualism so much that it's hard to accept the idea that we are not wrong in our thoughts and we should not adjust our ideals to fit. Even I struggle with that, knowing there are few options for me at any restaurant or public eatery and it's best to just stay at home and make some quinoa and beans. I don't wanna be that guy at the restaurant table that has to ask a million questions about the food prep. Just give me the drink menu and a cheeseless and dressing less side salad. It's even affected my dating life, especially since I am nowhere near a large selection of my own kind and many have predisposed assumptions about me. So yes, in a lot of ways I empathize with Craig, though our own prisons are of different designs. There is also a lot of other things in the film that only men will really get, like our lack of depth in our conversations and the cruelty we may play on outsiders. But that is the male condition unfortunately, and too many of us are stuck on that hamster wheel just trying to deal with a society that continues to be aloof to our own unique problems.

I, admittedly, cringe very easily. I can't watch reality shows because the awkward conflict makes me uncomfortable. I like Tim Robinson sometimes when his outrageousness is so over the top that it's just separate from reality. In this film, he is great, as is Paul Rudd, and frankly everyone. The cringe is low key enough in most scenes to make you truly squirm. I found myself squirming far more than laughing in this movie. It was weird, wild, and unique. I liked it and it stuck with me. I am sure that the discomfort I felt watching it was the point. If you like that cringey feeling, you will really like this movie.

Whenever I watch one of these A24 films, I know well in advance that, at various points throughout the movie, I'll feel uncomfortable, confused, entertained, and even challenged.

I read where someone referred to this movie as a bizarro version of "I Love You, Man", which coincidentally also featured Paul Rudd. However, instead of playing the awkward man looking for a friend in the 2009 John Hamburg-directed comedy, Rudd finds his character, "Austin Carmichael", on the other side of the relationship of the socially inept character, "Craig Waterman", masterfully portrayed by Tim Robinson.

Robinson's character is so socially awkward that it makes those of us who feel out of place in social situations at ease because we're allowed to think, "Man, I'm glad I'm not that bad."

At its conclusion, I couldn't decide whether to take the film at face value or as a blend of reality and abstract fantasy. "Friendship" is a movie that, once you start, even if you don't necessarily like it, you want to watch until the end because, as the film progresses, you grow increasingly curious as to how it will conclude.

This isn't a family night popcorn film. However, if you like movies that evoke genuine emotions as you watch, even ones of dread and uneasiness, you'll enjoy watching the train wreck each time it smashes into the station.

It's easy to describe this movie to someone who has watched "I THINK YOU SHOULD LEAVE" tv show(with Tim Robinson). FRIENDSHIP is like a 100 minutes episode of this show, less insane/provocative than an average episode,also a bit more entertaining addressing to larger audiences.

However, it's very difficult to describe this to someone who hasn't watched Robinson's tv shows. One might think that it's something like a dark comedy(like THE CABLE GUY) and a satire about male friendship. Or a deconstruction of movies regarding male friendship.

Truth is, even this description doesn't even begin to portray the sheer insanity of this movie. The male friendship is just a pretext, an excuse for all this surrealistic spectacle. This is more Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí than "Cable guy". But even Bunuel's movies had a second layer and they had a meaning. FRIENDSHIP has zero meaning or moral lessons or an underlying purpose. This is not about about society, there are no messages here, nothing.

There is a reviewer here named "aciessi" and i think his review is absolutely to the point : "I imagine some people have a lot of trouble explaining Tim Robinson. I think I can. He is the new champion of anti-comedy. Anti-comedy is almost a performance art unto itself and would suggest a uniquely higher level of understanding of what is funny and what is not, and then taking what is not funny and making it funny. It feels almost accidental, but it isn't.".

This.

I liked it a lot, there were many hilarious scenes, for real i would like to watch a 4 hour movie of Robinson. However, this is definitely not for everyone. Many people will call it a bad movie, and i won't even argue. It's not about right and wrong, good taste in movies and bad taste. Tim Robinson's cinematic value " lies in the eyes of the beholder".