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The Age
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Naomi Watts and a Great Dane co-star in a film that you won't forget
THE FRIEND ★★★★ (M) 119 minutes In The Friend, Naomi Watts' canine co-star, Apollo, looks as if he's descended direct from Olympus. Such is his air of gravitas. He's an extraordinarily poised Great Dane who Watts' Iris, a writer and teacher, has inherited from Walter, her literary mentor and best friend. Walter (Bill Murray) died by suicide for unknown reasons, and Iris and Apollo are both grieving. There is another problem, however. Iris is finding it impossible to contain the dog, a commanding presence, in her tiny, rent-controlled Manhattan apartment where animals are banned. She's on the verge of being evicted. The film is an adaptation of a novel by New Yorker Sigrid Nunez. A winner of the National Book Award, it was both a meditation on the way the narrator and the Dane bond over their memories and a trenchant comment on the writing and teaching life. For the film, co-directors David Siegel and Scott McGehee, who collaborated on the screenplay, have broadened the book's canvas, enlivening it with a cast of supporting characters who make you feel as if you've become embedded in an intimate corner of literary New York. The narrative is slow-going, but the mood is nostalgic and pleasingly melancholy and Walter appears in enough flashbacks to give you an insight into what he and Iris saw in one another. In this age of podcasts, sound bites and short reads, it's refreshing to find yourself among people who have spent their lives dedicated to the written word. The group also has a caustically witty fondness for gossip, and Iris finds a kindred spirit when she re-connects with Walter's first wife, Elaine (Carla Gugino). They share tart opinions of Walter's other two wives – Elaine's successor, Tuesday (Constance Wu), who routinely irritates everybody they know, and number three, Barbara (Noma Dumezweni), the official widow. She's the one who virtually orders Iris to take Apollo on. Summoning her to the Brooklyn brownstone she had shared with Walter, she tells Iris that Apollo is wasting away from grief and will die if he stays where he is. She also makes him sound more biddable than he really is. When Iris gets him home, he colonises her bed and refuses to shift, forcing her to sleep on the floor. A solution seems possible when Tuesday offers to take him, but Iris' worst fears are confirmed within five minutes of delivery when he outrages his new host by making an unwelcome impression on her soft furnishings. Once again, it's back home to Iris' apartment.
Sydney Morning Herald
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Naomi Watts and a Great Dane co-star in a film that you won't forget
THE FRIEND ★★★★ (M) 119 minutes In The Friend, Naomi Watts' canine co-star, Apollo, looks as if he's descended direct from Olympus. Such is his air of gravitas. He's an extraordinarily poised Great Dane who Watts' Iris, a writer and teacher, has inherited from Walter, her literary mentor and best friend. Walter (Bill Murray) died by suicide for unknown reasons, and Iris and Apollo are both grieving. There is another problem, however. Iris is finding it impossible to contain the dog, a commanding presence, in her tiny, rent-controlled Manhattan apartment where animals are banned. She's on the verge of being evicted. The film is an adaptation of a novel by New Yorker Sigrid Nunez. A winner of the National Book Award, it was both a meditation on the way the narrator and the Dane bond over their memories and a trenchant comment on the writing and teaching life. For the film, co-directors David Siegel and Scott McGehee, who collaborated on the screenplay, have broadened the book's canvas, enlivening it with a cast of supporting characters who make you feel as if you've become embedded in an intimate corner of literary New York. The narrative is slow-going, but the mood is nostalgic and pleasingly melancholy and Walter appears in enough flashbacks to give you an insight into what he and Iris saw in one another. In this age of podcasts, sound bites and short reads, it's refreshing to find yourself among people who have spent their lives dedicated to the written word. The group also has a caustically witty fondness for gossip, and Iris finds a kindred spirit when she re-connects with Walter's first wife, Elaine (Carla Gugino). They share tart opinions of Walter's other two wives – Elaine's successor, Tuesday (Constance Wu), who routinely irritates everybody they know, and number three, Barbara (Noma Dumezweni), the official widow. She's the one who virtually orders Iris to take Apollo on. Summoning her to the Brooklyn brownstone she had shared with Walter, she tells Iris that Apollo is wasting away from grief and will die if he stays where he is. She also makes him sound more biddable than he really is. When Iris gets him home, he colonises her bed and refuses to shift, forcing her to sleep on the floor. A solution seems possible when Tuesday offers to take him, but Iris' worst fears are confirmed within five minutes of delivery when he outrages his new host by making an unwelcome impression on her soft furnishings. Once again, it's back home to Iris' apartment.
