It takes a special kind of person to adopt a Great Dane. That person dies early in "The Friend," leaving Naomi Watts to care for her poor dog in a short adaptation of Sigrid Núñez's novel.
Before his death, French actor Alain Delon had expressed his wish that his dog, Loubo, be euthanized upon his passing. Delon believed the bond between him and his rescued Belgian Malinois was so strong that the dog would miss him terribly when he died, and he preferred to spare him that pain. (In the end, Delon's children assured the press that Loubo would be saved.)
How do you explain death to a dog? That question, and several others deeper than one might expect from a dog movie, lend intellectual weight to "The Friend," a gentle grief drama that offers its audience an 180-pound emotional support animal: Apollo, a harlequin Great Dane who misses his master and is headed to the proverbial glue factory unless a generous enough human agrees to adopt him. Naomi Watts plays that human in a mainstream crowd-pleaser that offers something more to think about than your typical dog-centric tearjerker.
Explaining death to people is very difficult, as most prefer not to think about it—an unfortunate situation for many pet owners, who fail to adequately plan for their companions' future after they pass away. That's not the case for Walter Meredith (Bill Murray), an admired old-school author—one of those who entertained his students back in the day, before times changed and accusations of misconduct cut short his teaching career—who bequeaths the giant puppy to his favorite student and former lover, Iris (Watts).
For co-directors David Siegel and Scott McGehee, landing Murray for what amounts to an extended cameo was a coup: the role demands an actor whose presence is felt even off-screen, and whose charms could keep such a troubled character from becoming more complex. Personally, I had a hard time remembering Walter's exes, as the inveterate womanizer's funeral is attended by his first, second, and third wives—Elaine (Carla Gugino), Tuesday (Constance Wu), and Barbara (Noma Dumezweni), respectively—as well as his adult daughter, Val (Sarah Pidgeon), and several friends, presumably including Iris.
Does the film's uninspiring title refer to Iris, Walter, or the dog? The blame for that ambiguity falls on Sigrid Núñez, author of the acclaimed novel that "The Deep End" duo Siegel and McGehee adapted here. Both the book and the film can be taken at face value (as a relatively tame account of the imposition of a large, sad animal), but they can also be read as explorations of mortality, with Apollo symbolizing the psychological burden of losing someone to suicide.
At two hours long, "The Friend" feels rather long and uneventful to serve simply as a tale of animal adoption, so it's best to dig in and let it play out on an emotional level, where your personal history—of lost loved ones, adopted animals, etc.—determines how much you take away from the experience. A friend recently told me that dogs were put on this earth to help humans grieve, which struck me as a rather self-centered way of looking at it, though it's true that their lives are shorter than ours, and losing one forces us to confront mortality.
Why did Walter think Iris would be the right person to care for Apollo? She lives alone in a small, rent-controlled apartment on Washington Place, where pets are explicitly prohibited. Iris and Walter shared a dark sense of humor, cracking jokes about suicide (e.g., "The more suicidal people there are, the less suicidal there are"). But she never expected him to actually do it. Now he's gone, and she'll never know what he was thinking. That's the cruelty of suicide: it leaves survivors with so many mysteries.
Iris reluctantly accepts the responsibility of relocating Apollo, seeing in this majestic animal—"the king of dogs," as one of her students (Owen Teague) calls him—a constant reminder of her deceased friend and a living creature that now depends on her for survival. Iris's affable but strict building manager (Felix Solis) makes it clear that dogs are not allowed in the apartments, and Apollo is too big to sneak into her purse. A kind neighbor (Ann Dowd) seems supportive, but what must it be like to have such a beast lurking next door? Complaints are only a matter of time.
Dog lovers will appreciate "The Friend" anyway, even if it's all resolved a little too easily. Before Iris can save Apollo, she must decide she truly wants to keep him, and in doing so, she must accept responsibility for his life... and the fact that this 5-year-old animal is now closer to the end than the beginning. "The Friend" functions as a lesson in grief, but also as an exercise in pre-grief.
If "The Friend" didn't move me as much as others who've seen it, I'd attribute that to two things. First, Apollo is played by a canine actor named Bing, who seems incredibly well-trained, which belies the personality Iris finds unruly. And second, everyone in the film is overly polite. When Apollo misbehaves, climbing and claiming his bed, Iris immediately gives up and pulls out the air mattress. I was frustrated that the characters weren't more frustrated.
To the extent that "The Friend" is meant to be cathartic, it helps to have Iris and the others express strong emotions. The film's therapy scene is a good start, but the next one, in which Iris confronts Walter's ghost, is too contrived. Of course, the character, a writer with writer's block, would find a way to write about this experience. But is this really the book Walter hoped his star student would write? Dead or not, friends don't let friends write trashy fiction.
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