The Friend

MOVIE TITLE:    The Friend

This dramedy is now playing in theaters.

RATING:     R

LENGTH:  1 hour 59 minutes

Movie Review Mom GRADE:    B

SPONSOR of Today’s movie review: Super cute Great Dane tote with zipper closure: https://amzn.to/4m0lcnO

IN A NUTSHELL:

The Friend (2025), directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, is a poignant and understated drama that explores grief, companionship, and the unexpected bonds that help us heal. Adapted from Sigrid Nunez’s National Book Award-winning novel, the film follows Iris (Naomi Watts), a solitary New York writer who inherits a massive Great Dane named Apollo after her mentor and friend Walter (Bill Murray) dies by suicide. What unfolds is a tender, often melancholic story that sidesteps the clichés of a typical “dog movie” to deliver something more introspective and emotionally raw.

The story centers on Iris, a middle-aged writer grappling with creative stagnation and the sudden loss of Walter, a charismatic but flawed literary figure. When Walter’s widow, Barbara (Noma Dumezweni), insists Iris take in Apollo, the dog becomes both a burden and a catalyst for Iris’s emotional journey. The film deftly balances practical challenges—Apollo’s size makes him a nightmare in Iris’s rent-controlled Manhattan apartment—with deeper existential questions about loss, responsibility, and moving forward. Through Iris’s evolving relationship with Apollo, the film examines how grief can be shared across species, posing the haunting question: “How do you explain death to a dog?”

The narrative doesn’t shy away from Walter’s complexities. Through flashbacks and conversations, we learn he was a serial womanizer with a trail of ex-wives (played by Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, and Dumezweni) and a recently revealed daughter, Val (Sarah Pidgeon). Yet the film avoids over-explaining his suicide, letting its impact ripple through Iris and Apollo’s quieter moments. This restraint, paired with the film’s focus on an “ordinary” woman, makes The Friend a refreshing departure from melodramatic tropes.

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

• Kids will be very bored.
• Talk of intimate relations
• Talk of suicide and death
• Profanity, including F-bombs
• Lots of alcohol

McGehee and Siegel strike a delicate balance between sardonic and heartfelt, grounding the film in New York’s literary world without letting it feel pretentious. The cinematography, with its warm yet muted tones, captures the city’s chaos and Iris’s small, cluttered apartment as characters in their own right. Mozart needle drops and a subtle score enhance the film’s introspective mood, though the pacing occasionally drags, particularly in the second act, where literary subplots can feel like detours.

The film’s greatest strength is its refusal to overplay its emotional beats. It’s not trying to be a tearjerker like Marley & Me or a quirky indie comedy. Instead, it sits comfortably in its own lane, embracing the messiness of grief and the awkward beauty of human-animal connection. That said, a few moments—like a late fantasy sequence—feel overly sentimental, slightly undermining the film’s otherwise grounded tone.

THEMES:

• Creatives
• Friendship
• Writers
• Choices and consequences
• Death
• Grief
• Suicide
• Dogs
• Connection
• New York City life

Naomi Watts delivers a career-high performance as Iris, blending intellectual sharpness with raw vulnerability. She captures the exhaustion of grief and the slow warmth of her bond with Apollo without ever tipping into sentimentality. Her scenes with Bill Murray, though limited to flashbacks, are electric—particularly a climactic confrontation that’s both devastating and thought-provoking. Murray, as Walter, brings his signature charm but laces it with a mournful edge, making his absence feel palpable.

The real revelation, however, is Bing, the Great Dane who plays Apollo. With soulful eyes and a gravitas that never feels anthropomorphized, Bing steals every scene. His performance—whether sprawling across Iris’s bed or staring mournfully at Walter’s old T-shirt—is a testament to expert training and the directors’ trust in letting Apollo be a dog, not a caricature. The supporting cast, including Gugino, Wu, and Ann Dowd as Iris’s kind neighbor, adds depth, though some characters feel underdeveloped, a minor flaw in an otherwise tight script.

THINGS I LIKED:

• I adore Naomi Watts.  I think the first time I saw her was in the movie remake of King Kong.  She was mesmerizing and I’ve loved her in everything she has done since then. Of course, she was fantastic.  Already, she has won the BIFF “Best Performance” award.
• Who doesn’t love Bill Murray?  He is as charming and goofy as always.
• Both Bill Murray and Naomi Watts previously starred together in a movie called St Vincent.  You can see my movie review of that on www.MovieReviewMom.com
• The rest of the cast features Noma Dumezweni, Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, Owen Teague, and Ann Dowd.
• I love little details that provide a wink to the viewer who is paying close attention.  For example, Sigrid Nunez is the author of the book that the movie is based on. When Naomi Watts’ character visits Bill Murray’s publisher, you can see several other books by Sigrid Nunez in real life on the publisher’s desk.
• The producers of the movie invited Sigrid Nunez to have a cameo role as a dinner table guest, but she politely declined.  I definitely would have done it!  That would be so fun!  I was an Extra in an American telenovela many years ago, but they ended up scrapping the project, so no one has ever seen it.
• The dog is gorgeous.  Many years ago, when I lived in Spain, I would watch two beautiful Great Danes run through the green meadow behind my apartment building. For some reason, it was mesmerizing. They were so graceful, strong, and happy. The dog trainer who worked with Apollo in the film did an excellent job.
• As an author of 36 books, I loved the scenes where people talked about the art of writing and the creative process.
• There are some touching scenes that will cause your eyes to tear up, especially the water funeral on the boat where Apollo cried.
• I always like it when New York City is one of the characters in a movie.
• Lovely soundtrack.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

•  It’s unnecessarily long.
•  The second act can feel sluggish, with literary subplots—like Iris’s struggles as a writer or tangential conversations about Walter’s past—slowing the narrative momentum. Some viewers found these detours distracting from the core story of Iris and Apollo.
• The film balances sardonic humor and heartfelt drama but occasionally stumbles. A late fantasy sequence feels overly sentimental, clashing with the grounded realism elsewhere. Some critics, like ScreenRant, called certain dialogue “pretentious,” which can disrupt the emotional flow.
• While the ensemble (Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, Noma Dumezweni) is strong, some characters, like Walter’s ex-wives or Iris’s neighbor, get limited screen time, making their roles feel peripheral or underdeveloped.
• A few X posts and reviews describe the film as “disjointed,” particularly in how it weaves flashbacks with the present-day story. The transitions can feel abrupt, and Walter’s backstory, while compelling, sometimes overshadows Iris and Apollo’s arc.

• “The day that I die will be like any other day, only shorter.” –     (Bill Murray)
• “The more suicidal people there are, the less suicidal people there are.” –   (Bill Murray)
• “Zoikes!  There’s a pony on your bed!” – Marjorie

INTERESTING LINES:

•  “Real people seldom behave as predictably as characters in stories.” – Iris  (Naomi Watts)
• “Beware the inevitable detail.” – Iris quoting Walter
• “I feel like I’m losing control, like my life story is being written by someone else.” – Iris  (Naomi Watts)
• “Men like Walter and their beloved language…  Isn’t it disappointing when it comes time to seduce, they all sound the same.” –    (Carla Gugino)

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