Editor’s Word: This assessment was initially revealed throughout the 2024 Telluride Movie Competition. “The Good friend” opens from Bleecker Avenue Friday, March 28, 2025.
There’s no method to play this half cool: for your complete second half of David Siegel and Scott McGehee’s “The Good friend,” this critic was diminished to a blubbering, sobbing, heaving mess, clutching damp paper towels and alternating between choking and laughing. Whereas the filmmaking pair’s newest would possibly sound squarely aimed toward Naomi Watts super-fans and intense animal folks, what they really current in “The Good friend” isn’t so very area of interest in any respect: as a substitute, it’s the form of witty, smart, and heat character research we appear to be working out of as of late. And that’s simply relating to its standout canine star, the Nice Dane (emphasis on nice) Bing.
The movie opens each earlier than and after the arrival of Apollo, the Nice Dane at its middle. By means of shared voiceover narration, Iris (Naomi Watts) and her mentor Walter (Invoice Murray) set the scene, recounting the time that Walter, whereas on a seemingly on a regular basis run round Brooklyn’s river stroll, first encountered an deserted Apollo. Awestruck by the good beast, the impulsive Walter had no alternative. He took him in. Or Apollo took him in. It’s onerous to say, actually. However bringing somebody — anybody — into your life comes with its personal questions, and when Walter muses, “What’s going to occur to the canine?,” he’s not simply speaking concerning the canine.
However that’s previously. Within the current of “The Good friend,” Walter has just lately died, leaving each Apollo and Iris, his “finest good friend,” former pupil, and one-time lover, to choose up the items. That will sound darkish, however regardless of setting “The Good friend” in a interval of profound grief for each its human and canine leads, Siegel and McGehee’s movie (based mostly on Sigrid Nunez’s award-winning novel of the identical title) is fleet and humorous, the form of slice-of-life New York movie we’re used to getting from the Nicole Holofceners of the world (of which we want extra, to make certain). Set simply earlier than, throughout, and after Christmas, the movie has a worn-in, lovable really feel to it, the form of function you need to spend extra time nestled inside. (It’s additionally not the primary time Watts has shared the display screen with a outstanding animal star, and we sincerely hope it gained’t be the final.)
Iris’ first large, post-Walter loss of life job: his funeral. Walter was beloved, regardless of being a sophisticated determine (his memorial service is well-attended by ladies, we word, together with at least three dwelling wives and his grown daughter, who he met later in life) and rumblings of “misconduct nonsense” that quickly emerge to not be so very nonsensical in any respect. However Iris liked him, and so did all these wives (Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, and Noma Dumezweni) and his solely baby Val (a stunning Sarah Pidgeon). He’s going to be missed, and he leaves a lot behind. Together with Apollo.
Iris already has a lot happening earlier than Dumezweni’s Barbara calls her over to her and Walter’s swanky Brooklyn brownstone with a really, very large ask. She’s obtained a horrible case of author’s block — she jokes that she mainly set herself up for it, naming the rattling novel “Japanese Bloc” and all — however nonetheless stays busy instructing her writing lessons and hacking away at a guide of Walter’s correspondence she’s modifying alongside Val. However there’s nonetheless so very a lot lacking in Iris’ life even earlier than Walter selected to depart it: no associate, no pets (regardless of repeated proclamations that she loves animals), a social life largely confined to her constructing and office, and an enthralling condominium we later study belonged to her deceased father (additionally, it appears, a sophisticated man).
Audiences will seemingly know Barbara’s ask earlier than a single body rolls on the movie: can Iris take Apollo? After all she will be able to’t! And naturally she says sure. Shifting a large Nice Dane into her tiny Manhattan condominium is sufficient of a stretch, however there’s one other concern: Apollo is depressed. You’ll be able to see it on his face! (That Bing, the Nice Dane that performs Apollo, is a talented actor is obvious from the beginning; his efficiency solely will get higher.) He takes over Iris’ mattress, refuses to eat, and largely appears engaged with an outdated T-shirt of Walter’s that Barbara stuffed in a toy bag. The one factor he would possibly mildly take pleasure in? Being learn to, one thing Iris discovers Walter used to do for the massive man. Regardless of the speciality of Iris and Apollo’s scenario, there’s one thing splendidly relatable about all of this. It’s simply life, in spite of everything.
Apollo’s presence in Iris’ life threatens to upend practically every part, together with the important components which have lengthy held it collectively (work, her condominium, her sense of self), however “The Good friend” makes the regular case for Iris, for everybody, to seek out one thing higher in that chaos. Like, maybe, the love of a good friend you by no means knew you wanted. What’s going to unfold between the pair isn’t stunning — although audiences might have some enjoyable making an attempt to choose who’s actually the eponymous good friend of the title — however how Iris and Apollo come to their revelations and realizations is satisfying in ways in which transcend any plot expectations.
What’s one of the simplest ways to make a good friend? To be one. It’s a lesson we have to study again and again in our lives, and one warmly delivered to life in “The Good friend.” However what occurs after you make that good friend, you be that good friend? If we’re fortunate, it appears a bit of like the films, a minimum of this type.
Grade: B+
“The Good friend” premiered on the 2024 Telluride Movie Competition and can subsequent display screen on the 2024 Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition. Bleecker Avenue releases the movie Friday, March 28.
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