“Friendship” has turned out to be a shock mini-breakout for A24. That the Tim Robinson-led movie has its important champions and devoted following is to be anticipated, but it surely’s stunning that the darkish, anxiety-inducing, so-called cringe comedy was capable of make an prolonged theatrical run, earlier than changing into the top-rated movie on HBO MAX because it made its streaming debut this previous weekend.
When “Friendship” author/director Andrew DeYoung was a visitor on this week’s episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast, he admitted he wasn’t ready for the amount of guffaws the movie obtained throughout its preliminary competition screenings.
“After I noticed it at TIFF, I didn’t notice I made this sort of film,” mentioned DeYoung of the gang’s laughter. “Seeing it with a crowd, I used to be like, ‘I can’t imagine this, did I make ‘Borat 3’ by accident?’”
Whereas DeYoung has realized credit score is because of Robinson’s rabid fanbase and the raucous SXSW and Toronto’s Midnight Insanity audiences, he’s additionally come to appreciate the movie’s humor hits more durable than he anticipated — that’s partially as a result of he wasn’t attempting to make a standard comedy.
“I’m not an enormous fan of most comedy films as a result of I feel it lacks one thing actual beneath,” mentioned DeYoung. “I respect lots of [comedies], I watch, I chortle, and I don’t take into consideration them ever once more.”
DeYoung gravitates extra towards extra “uncomfortable” comedies, like Scorsese’s “King of Comedy,” or the work of Swedish director Ruben Östlund (“Triangle of Unhappiness,” “Pressure Majeure”) — movies that include laughs that, accordingly to DeYoung, “hit more durable due to the emotion beneath,” as a result of they contact on the nerve of one thing deeper and “actual.”
Within the case of “Friendship,” DeYoung pokes beneath the floor at points that political scientist Robert D. Putnam wrote about in his landmark 2000 e-book, “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Group.”
“I went deep into [Putnam’s] work,” mentioned DeYoung. “He was pointing on the full lack of group in [modern] American life that I feel all of us really feel.”
That communal void is felt by Craig Waterman (Robinson) following the termination of his temporary friendship with Austin (Paul Rudd), the cool new neighbor who, within the first act, magically injects Craig’s life with a male pal group, out of doors adventures, jam periods, and night hangs. After Austin abruptly ends their friendship, Craig is determined to get again what he misplaced and to refill that void, triggering more and more unhinged habits that culminates in him shedding his job, household, and freedom.
It’s not the stuff of a normal American comedy, however neither is DeYoung’s mannequin of what a comedy needs to be. Whereas on the podcast, the “Friendship” author/director mentioned the eye-opening second when he was a teen and noticed Chris Smith’s “American Film,” a documentary a couple of Wisconsin filmmaker attempting to finish his low-budget horror movie amid a sequence of setbacks and private issues.
“I do know it’s a doc, however to me [‘American Movie’] is what comedy needs to be, as a result of it’s determined individuals attempting their damnedest to make one thing of themselves, ” mentioned DeYoung. “And the digicam ideally needs to be in service of these actual feelings. I really feel this in TV — as a result of I work in TV quite a bit — when issues are so brilliant, I simply hastily am like, ‘All these characters are in a Goal.’ It takes away from the emotion.”
DeYoung added, “It’s additionally [that] we’re inundated with photos now, particularly issues that look technically appropriate, however are so goddamn boring. So, I’m excited to push it even additional and play with the picture and make it really feel ‘actual,’ or darkish as doable.”
DeYoung and cinematographer Andy Rydzewski plunge Craig into rising literal darkness, a lot so, because the movie progresses that it stylistically adopts points of the horror style.
“As quickly as [Craig and Austin’s] breakup occurs, [the film] begins to enter that [darkness] as a result of it’s that nervousness of shedding any person, that you simply wish to be with, that I feel looks like a horror film to most of us, particularly in the event that they met a certain quantity of your wants that you simply don’t know learn how to meet your self,” mentioned DeYoung. “That’s why ideally we chortle and eliminate the stress, but it surely’s these two emotions on the similar time [that] is admittedly rewarding to me. It’s fertile floor for narrative to have each locations — each, I’m getting laughs, however I’m additionally on this tense, ‘I’m undecided [what] goes to occur’ [feeling].”
It’s right here DeYoung factors to Paul Thomas Anderson, a director he’s studied intensely, and whose 2012 Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix-led “The Grasp” had a profound affect on him, partially due to Anderson’s capacity to craft scenes that maintain simultaneous and contradictory feelings.
Stated DeYoung of Anderson, “There’s one thing rewarding about him not shoving you, the viewer, into form of expectation, or a sure feeling. He’s so good about offering a couple of emotions that you simply get to select from, and to me, I discover that he respects the viewers a lot.”
DeYoung additionally argues PTA’s movies are far funnier than individuals give them credit score — one thing “Friendship” followers have helped him settle for about his personal movie.
To listen to Andrew DeYoung‘s full interview, subscribe to the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favourite podcast platform.