Friendship

Released 2024. Director: Andrew DeYoung

SOCIAL INTERACTIONS CAN GET AWKWARD when you’re not familar or meeting for the first time. What to say, what topics to avoid, having nothing in common, or just the wrong frequency. Making new friends is even more challenging, apparently so for men in middle-age.

Friendship is a movie that squeezes the worst out of uncomfortable situations. Craig brings a mis-delivered package to his new neighbour Austin and is instantly drawn to the easy charms of the TV weatherman. No, not in the romantic way but an admiration and a desire to hang out together like a buddy. If Paul Rudd moved in next door, would you say no to chilling with him? Silly question.

Austin becomes Craig’s BFF straightaway. They click over their love of music and go mushroom foraging. Austin tells Craig if he ever buys that sexy yellow Corvette, Craig would be his first passenger. How the heart melts.

When Austin invites Craig over to join his clique of friends to have a beer and kick back, that’s when everything starts to fall apart. Craig tries too hard, goes overboard with friendly sparring, crashes a glass door and does weird stuff like stuffing a bar of soap in his mouth. His behaviour shocks and alienates everyone. Dude, you are no longer welcome in my house.

It’s easy for us to see that Craig the family man is a reluctant loner and he desperately wants to – no, needs to – be included into a tight friendship as one of the boys. At the office, there’s no chance of that ever happening, where Craig is not really a team player. His colleagues talk behind his back, his boss doesn’t appreciate him, he has no friends.

Even as we begin to sympathise with Craig, the movie also makes him less and less likeable. Craig is a walking example of insecurity but isn’t self-aware. He’s more interested in winning Austin’s approval than supporting his wife in her home-based flower delivery business, which makes him a rather selfish husband.

Craig just isn’t made to have close friends, or friends in general unless you are super tolerant and cool about personal boundaries. Despite his (usually) harmless intentions, Craig’s behaviour does nothing to endear him to new friends or workmates. He has minimal awareness of social rules and can come across as pushy, inconsiderate, even a stalker.

This is where I was led astray. I thought we were meant to side with this poor guy, sympathise with him as a socially awkward but inherently sweet-natured bloke who is simply trying too hard to make friends. But I was wrong. The movie tricks us to feel that, then shows Craig to be an obsessive nutcase who breaks into people’s home and steals a gun, who seems too casual when his wife goes missing in an underground warren of dark tunnels no thanks to him. Not a sane neighbour or model husband.

As the movie subjects Craig to more humiliations and irrational behaviour to milk sadistic laughter, I don’t find this comedy funny anymore. This is no longer about how some men find it difficult to make new friends in middle age. This is not a comedy about men who don’t know how to behave. It is a cruel joke to laugh at men who are awkward and have possibly struggled all their lives to be “normal”. If you recognise Craig as Tim Robinson from the sketch comedy “I Think You Should Leave Now with Tim Robinson” you’ll know exactly the kind of cringe factor at play here, amplified and extended.

In the end the movie is callous to everyone, from Paul Rudd’s Austin to Craig’s wife Tami, played by Kate Mara, all of Austin’s friends and Craig’s co-workers, and of course the prime target Craig himself. Friendship is mean-spirited and low. By all means laugh at men’s insecurity and vanity, but a good comedy doesn’t have to be unkind.  

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