CRITICS

Alison Willmore on Friendship ... Kathryn VanArendonk on Forever ... Justin Davidson on the Davis Center at the Harlem Meer.

- ALISON WILLMORE

Men’s Group

A hilarious story of adult friendship gone wrong might make you groan.

IN A PACKED screening of Friendship at SXSW, I was sitting next to a stranger who moaned “nooooo” under his breath whenever Tim Robinson's character—a husband, father, and corporate drone named Craig Waterman—was about to do something he shouldn't. There are plenty of contexts in which this kind of behavior would be annoying. But in the case of this particular film, these involuntary expressions of secondhand embarrassment felt like an enhancement.

Friendship doesn’t lean into cringe in a way that’s punishing—it's more that awkwardness is always in its atmosphere, a quality that Craig can’t escape. The movie opens on a meeting of a cancer-survivor support group, where Tami (Kate Mara) is speaking in earnest, fragile tones about being 12 months into remission and still feeling like her life is overshadowed by dread about the disease returning. Then the camera's focus shifts to Craig, sitting alongside her, as he puts his hand on her thigh and says, “It’s not coming back.” The moment’s like a record scratch. Craig is just trying to be supportive of his wife, yet it all feels hilariously wrong—the smarmy expression on his face, the studied aspect of the gesture, the slightly too long pause between the touch and the reassurance.