Friendship ★★★1/2

Availability:  In a limited number of US theaters now; showing widely beginning May 23. As an A24 production, it will be streaming on Max as early as this Summer; see JustWatch here for up-to-date streaming information.

A Seriocomic Modern Tale

“I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer.” One can appreciate how a generation of young men would make the lyric, from The Doors’ 1970 recording of “Roadhouse Blues,” a signature in school yearbooks in the decade to come. But when Craig (former Saturday Night Live actor and comedy writer Tim Robinson), the geeky, middle-aged protagonist of “Friendship,” offers his 16-year-old son (Jack Dylan Grazer) and his son’s girlfriend a beer at 7:30 a.m. on a school day, it’s just inappropriate. Craig is inappropriate, to a fault. For whatever reason—he’s on the spectrum, or on a spectrum, or he’s bi-polar, or just trying too hard to be cool—Craig doesn’t understand the most basic social codes, the rules of every-day behavior that govern human relations in a particular setting—in this case, small-town Colorado.

Craig (Tim Robinson), left, tries to learn the tricks of being a "cool dude"

from Austin (Mark Rudd), who has some issues himself with coolness.

Craig isn’t a victim of the social media, as so many young people are these days (though he does fetishize the super-heroes of Marvel movies, an obsession that can’t be real-life helpful). In fact, he isn’t a victim at all. He’s married to florist Tami, a stable, competent, good-looking woman (Kate Mara) who cares about him while tolerating his bizarre and erratic conduct. His son is maturing as scheduled. He has a good job in (ironically) public relations, working with a cadre of men who know he’s a bit strange but appear to value his contributions to the business.

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Austin extends a hand in “friendship” to the awkward, uncomfortable child-man who has shown up at his front door.

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And, as the film opens, Craig is warmly greeted by new neighbor Austin (Paul Rudd), a dude with a great head of hair who does the weather for local TV nightly news and has all sorts of nifty hobbies, from playing in a rock band to exploring the town’s sewer tunnels. Austin extends a hand in “friendship” to the awkward, uncomfortable child-man who has shown up at his front door. It requires a strong dose of “willing suspension of disbelief” to accept it, but Craig is embraced. Although Rudd, the big star here, is terrific as the nuanced dude, it’s Robinson’s complex performance as Craig—at once innocent, devious, needy, angry, inept, and hapless—that holds the film together.

From that first handshake, director and writer Andrew DeYoung’s film is about mid-life male friendship, a quality in short supply in a society in which real contacts have been replaced by Facebook and Instagram or inhibited by Covid, and the spaces of social interaction—the “third places,” like neighborhood taverns and mini-marts, bookstores, and even malls—have yielded to Amazon, TikTok, and drinking at home. Guys like Craig go “Bowling Alone.”

The heart of the film is

Tim Robinson,

as the "inappropriate" Craig.

Austin’s welcome extends beyond that handshake. He invites Craig to join gatherings of his male friends, a tight-knit bunch that has its own idiosyncrasies, including garage boxing matches and cringeworthy group singing—early signs that Austin’s life isn’t as “cool” or as effortless as it first appears. A drug-induced fantasy suggests Craig may grasp that small-time celebrity-weatherman Austin, though recently promoted to the morning weather slot, is not so far from making foot-longs at Subway.

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DeYoung offers something that approaches tragedy: a man who cannot overcome his seriocomic ineptitude.

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Soon after the neighbors meet, the plot takes an unexpected turn. Rather than the beginning of Craig’s education—with inevitable setbacks, eventual acceptance of a changed Craig by his new buddies, complete with heart-warming ending—DeYoung offers something that approaches tragedy: a man who cannot overcome his seriocomic ineptitude. It happens fast. At the first guy-party at Austin’s home, Craig walks into and shatters a plate glass door (a metaphor for his inability to “see”). As the men turn in astonishment, Craig can muster only “How did you all meet?”

Despite glimpses of redemption—a sign here and there that he’s learning the “rules”—even Craig knows it’s not good enough. “I do everything too late,” he reflects, having finally bought his wife the van she had long needed for her business. Why she married him in the first place (or stuck with him for so many years) is not clear. Fortunately, we’re spared marriage counseling and other manifestations of the therapeutic.

Craig’s visible discomfort on entering a group whose vibe he can’t pick up is a reminder of some of the social experiences any of us has had. It’s a reflection, too, of life on social media today, where we are all one faux pas away from being made fun of, ostracized, banned from a community. DeYoung’s script and Robinson’s acting allow in-person experiences to be markers for the trauma of on-line life and, more broadly, for a social universe too sparse to engender comfort. Craig is, in that sense, Everyman.

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...a very funny film in a variety of ways.

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Humor leavens—even enhances—what otherwise would be a maudlin production, trading as it does, from beginning to end, in the foibles and inadequacies of as pathetic a character as you’re likely to meet in the movies, especially considering that Craig is not a jerk, not evil, and not, even, unlikeable. It’s a very funny film in a variety of ways—in its moments of slapstick, its ironies, and in a dozen or more unexpected, subtle lines (producing hearty laughter at our screening) that lighten the moment and help us tolerate the horror show that is Craig’s asocial existence. In the back room of a phone store, an amiable techie is about to introduce Craig to a psychedelic potion that he claims will put the awkward man into a near-death state, followed by a rebirth. At this fraught moment, with Craig on the floor, anxious and frightened, the young drug seller says earnestly, “I have to go to lunch. It’s my lunch break.”

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He says:  A smart film that manages to interrogate a serious social problem without offering the expected narrative or an easy resolution.

She says: A fascinating combination of comedy and something much more troubling.

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Date: 2025

Director: Andrew DeYoung

Starring: Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd, Kate Mara, Jack Dylan Grazer

Country: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 100 minutes

Other Awards: one nomination for Toronto International Film Festival People’s Choice Award/Midnight Madness