There wasn’t probably any ulterior motive beyond casting their pals that led co-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel to fill the roles of anyone with a medical license in “The Friend” to have experience with writing different kinds of scripts. But there does seem to be a special significance as Iris (Naomi Watts) visits both a veterinarian played by Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Norris (“Clybourne Park”) and psychiatrist played by the Oscar winner Tom McCarthy (“Spotlight”) after being saddled with a great dane she doesn’t think she has the capacity to care for after its former owner, her longtime mentor Walter (Bill Murray), has taken his own life. The death seems far easier to accept than the dog for Iris, who lives in a rent-controlled apartment in Greenwich Village that you can only usually get if it’s passed onto you, and even if she weren’t more inclined towards being a cat person, her building won’t allow pets of any kind. However, sometimes art can make sense of things science cannot and what could simply exist as an obscure in-joke regarding the doctors takes on a greater meaning as McGehee and Siegel themselves do a beautiful job of diagnosing what’s been holding Iris back, even as she has pressed ahead with little signs of resistance as others process their grief in their own individual ways.
A winning adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s novel of the same name, “The Friend” keeps up the convivial vibe of the tony dinner party that opens it throughout even when it centers around Walter’s shock passing, which you come to suspect is how the famous and gregarious author would’ve wanted it, introduced as he regales a close inner circle about finding the dog he would come to name Apollo on his morning jog around the docks. Iris knew they were close while he was alive — he entrusted her with editing a book of intimate personal correspondence alongside his daughter Val (Sarah Pidgeon) — but it isn’t until she inherits Apollo, his other best friend, over his previous wives (played by Carla Gugino, Constance Wu and Noma Dumezweni) that she receives clarification on her place in his life. The trouble is that Apollo complicates everything else, quite literally throwing his weight around as he sits despondent on her bed, forcing her to set up sleeping arrangements elsewhere and potentially out on the street altogether when the building’s superintendent Hektor (Felix Solis) catches wind that there’s a canine on the property.
You’re likely to see that there’s a greater reckoning in line for Iris than with her landlord before she does when a half-hearted search to find Apollo another home can be read as delaying a real confrontation of what Walter’s absence will mean to her moving forward, but McGehee and Siegel effortlessly turn a messy situation into a deeply moving one as Iris gradually comes to terms with what she’s lost. Even amongst an exceptionally strong cast, Watts’ radiant turn as the author with writers’ block who starts to warm to the distraction of a new pet stands out and the work of her scene partner Bing is also noteworthy in one of the great dog performances, which the filmmakers admirably resist getting overly cutesy in conveying. McGehee and Siegel also show restraint in preventing “The Friend” from becoming the shameless tearjerker it easily could be, making melancholy memories of Walter bring as much joy and curiosity to Iris as sorrow and by the film’s end, it’s the former that’s more likely to stay with you when it moves with such grace.
“The Friend” will screen again at the Telluride Film Festival on September 1st at 3:45 pm at the Palm and September 2nd at 8:30 pm at Elks Park. It will next screen at the Toronto Film Festival.