It’s hard to discuss a film you viscerally hate, as I did Friendship. Call me a sensitive snowflake but I’m just not into protracted depictions of inadequacy leading to humiliation. This has been Tim Robinson’s shtick in the various TV shows he’s been involved with. Now he’s brought the same cringe persona to a film, all 100 minutes of it. Or writer/director Andrew DeYoung has, in his feature debut, which he wrote expressly for Robinson.
And yet I’m giving it three stars. To explain: it’s the difference between liking and admiring, when it comes down to it. I didn’t like Friendship for one minute but it undoubtedly does do what it set out to do, powerfully. I’ve still got a quibble, when all’s said and done. But let’s get to the details.
The whole thing focuses on Robinson’s Craig, a social self-saboteur, and his sudden new friendship with a new neighbour, Austin. Though Austin is a weatherman on TV, he’s a regular dude in most other respects – plays in a rock band in his spare time, has a gang of brotastic friends, is liked and likeable. He’s played by Paul Rudd, at his most Rudd-like.
Against all expectation (and in an alternate universe when it comes to likelihood), Austin and Craig become pals, until Craig ruins the relationship by being a twerp at one of Austin’s beers-and-bros evenings. “Fucking cock,” shouts one of Austin’s old friends as he files out at the end of an evening brought to a screeching halt by Craig’s behaviour. Shortly afterwards Austin takes the unusual step of formally dumping Craig as a friend. But Craig does not, cannot, leave it there.
From here a series of increasingly desperate near-encounters between Austin and Craig (at Austin’s workplace, in his home), plus Craig attempts to create a gang of his own by co-opting the guys at work, even though they despise him.
Cringe comedy has its fans, and Robinson is clearly good at it. But the film doesn’t quite add up. The friendship between Austin and Craig is not emotionally plausible and exists only to power along the dumped-but-not-taking-it-lying-down scenario. Craig’s presence in the world makes no emotional sense either. The guy is a social pygmy – clearly, that’s what the film is about – and yet he holds down a client-facing job where social skills are paramount. He also has a sweet, smart and fun wife, played by Kate Mara, who not in a million years would have married this loser.
And while we’re about it, layering Austin with a smear of social ineptitude as well just looks like giving Paul Rudd something to do. He does it well. Tim Robinson does it well. Kate Mara does it well. There’s nothing wrong with the performers.
The whole thing is best seen as a series of sketches on the theme of social deficiency rather than as a coherent drama. It doesn’t work any other way and explains why Craig’s character keeps changing. A better and faintly reminiscent movie about asymmetrical power relations, if you’re looking for one – Chuck and Buck, the largely forgotten black comedy from 2000 written by and starring Mike White (now of The White Lotus fame).
All that said, DeYoung’s directorial energy does start to pull everything into some short of shape towards the end, around the time when Craig’s wife Tami leaves him and he sets off on a journey of self-discovery which involves, at least partly, licking the hallucinogenic goo from the glands of a giant toad. Here also, in a tiny role as Craig’s Dr Feelgood, Billy Bryk announces himself as a future star in scant moments of screen time. So – compensations.
I liked Keegan’s DeWitt’s leftfield score, which is faintly liturgical in style. I didn’t like the film. Next!
Friendship – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
I am an Amazon affiliate
© Steve Morrissey 2025
