Friendship is both not what you will expect and very much what you signed up for. Marketing is selling it as a dark comedy that will make you cringe and that is exactly what it is while also defying your expectations in just how much it can do that. DeYoung has woven a dark tale of social ineptitude which takes our common fears of not fitting in and twists it to a painfully difficult extreme.
A big part of what makes Friendship work is the excruciating performance of Robinson, who take a character that should have been a shark jumping caricature and makes him feel honestly real. He doesn’t get a redemption except in how much we all might see ourselves in his exaggerated ineptitude. He is all id, all bad decisions, the way we blow up our own faults in our minds beyond their real limits. He is a cautionary tale that wouldn’t work if it wasn’t for how deftly Robinson brings him to life.
Friendship might go on a bit long but it continues to surprise all the way along. I appreciated that it didn’t shy away from the ending it needed. Go in to this one as blind as possible but just be prepared to be uncomfortable and perhaps a bit reflective.
Friendship
Starring: Tim Robinson, Kate Mara, Jack Dylan Grazer, Paul Rudd
Writer/Director: Andrew DeYoung
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