Naomi Watts and Bill Murray's Drama of Lively Grief

While Naomi Watts holds off a huge Great Dane, The friend is far from your typical puppy movie. There’s no slapstick of the dog running away with her, and no sappiness, even though the film is about grief. This is a fresh, unsentimental but touching story about Iris (Watts), a writer and teacher, adjusting to life without her best friend, Walter (Bill Murray), a famous womanizing author. His suicide was a shock. But another shoe drops when she discovers he left behind Apollo, a Great Dane who almost reaches her waist.

The drama is based on the novel by Sigrid Nunez, which, while much-loved and admired, seems unsuitable for the page: it is told in the first person, and Iris often speaks directly to Walter, dropping comments about the writing and the books, as well as recalling details of their past relationship. But directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel have avoided all the pitfalls of adaptation while remaining faithful to the source material. From their first feature film, the bold Suture (1993), to the recent, emotionally resonant Montana History (2021), starring Owen Teague and Haley Lu Richardson as two siblings reunited on a family farm, the two have created skillful films that often focus more on character than plot. The friend It's just their style, with its wonderful, light-hearted approach to big themes like life, death, friendship, and whether a giant dog can live in a small New York apartment.

McGehee and Siegel build The friend around Iris’s narrative voice, including her memories and observations to Walter, while he appears rarely in flashbacks. Watts’s remarkably natural performance finds the right tone: sad but not dark, wondering why Walter committed suicide and why he left her the dog. The thin plot follows her progress as she initially resists taking Apollo, if only because her building doesn’t allow dogs. Walter’s widow Barbara (Noma Dumezweni) — also known to Iris and her friends as Wife Number Three — says it’s because she lives alone and loves animals. But no one thinks that’s a real explanation.

When Iris takes Apollo in temporarily while she tries to find him a new home, he becomes hard to resist. He has one blue eye and one brown eye, and sits as regal as his name. A neighbor (Ann Dowd, one of the many high-profile actresses who grace The friend (in rather small roles) who passes by and sees Apollo and says, “There's a pony on your bed. A very sad pony.” He looks very sad. At first it seems like he might be Walter's replacement for Iris, but more than that he's her partner in grief, their sadness mirroring each other's. There's humor in the absurdity of the situation. Apollo is sometimes mischievous and sometimes just plain big. He persistently takes over the bed, leaving Iris to sleep on an air mattress on the floor. And the film's emotion is subtle, coming through clearly if quietly when Apollo becomes attached to a T-shirt that still has Walter's scent on it.

Murray's casting is key to making The friend work so well. His familiar, rumpled presence is so endearing that we instantly like Walter and understand Iris's pain, much more than we might have if we had only heard about him. We don't actually know much about Walter, but then the movie isn't about him.

Some of what we know comes from dialogue. Carla Gugino, as Iris's old friend and Walter's former student (also Wife Number One), easily carries out much of the backstory. Constance Wu adds the most humor as Wife Number Two, who is stylish, annoying, and all too eager to write an autobiography about her ex-husband. Felix Solis, so menacing as a crime lord in the Netflix series Ozarksis much warmer here as the caretaker of Iris's building who keeps warning her that management will evict her because of the dog. Tom McCarthy plays a therapist in a scene that allows Iris to fully express her grief and perhaps find a solution to the dog problem.

Teague appears as one of Iris's writing students, in brief college scenes that give a glimpse into his life but aren't really necessary. More of that texture comes through in the look and settings. The friend It was shot in New York City, in parks and busy streets, and filmed by Giles Nuttgens (who shot many of McGehee and Siegel's films) with a bright light and clarity that gives the feeling of everyday life with an added magical glow. Stacey Battat's costume design makes Iris look believable: she is that of a middle-aged, non-fashion-obsessed writer, perfectly well-dressed but unflashy.

One question that is answered by the end of this adaptation model is whether Iris will keep Apollo. By then it is clear, perhaps even clearer than in the novel, that Walter has left her exactly what she needs to get by without him.