'Friendship' Is the Most Emotionally Confused Film of the Year (& and I Mean That as a Compliment)
By Natalie McCarty
A24, you weird little genius. You’ve done it again.
Friendship. What a film.
What is a film? What is friendship? What is masculinity, if not a group of grown men gently harmonizing to “My Boo” in a garage, beers in hand?
These are actual plot points in Andrew DeYoung’s Friendship, A24’s latest film that plays less like a movie and more like the world’s strangest group chat made flesh.
Image Courtesy of A24
This is a film about a guy who simply cannot hang. Not in the "I'm tired" way, but in the “I am spiritually unwell, socially misshapen, and oddly magnetic” way. Male bonding becomes a stage for something more existential: comedy disguised as horror, horror disguised as empathy. It's as alluring as it is alienating. It’s somehow both everything and nothing at once.
From the jump, you know something’s off (in a good way). The dialogue is absurd, the silences louder than the jokes. It’s so absurdly different. One moment you’re cringing so hard you nearly fold into your seat, the next you feel something close to… tenderness? It’s got a kind of emotional Stockholm Syndrome situation going on here.
The comedy is so witty and simple, it somehow feels huge with sewer-crawling, misdelivered mail, and male punk bands as comedic tools. At times, it flirts with the rhythm of a rom-com, though it’s miles from one (or is it?). Everything’s funny in that ‘what is even happening?’ kind of way. It’s also got murmurs of a horror film with this very palpable, quiet dread running underneath with a creeping tension. The guy simply cannot chill.
Image Courtesy of A24
At the center is Tim Robinson, patron saint of the emotionally unwell. Known for his sketch-comedy mania, here he dials it way down into something quieter, sadder, almost clinical. His character Glenn is the guy who tries too hard, laughs too long, and lingers just a bit too much. You pity him, until you don’t. He walks a very thin line between tragic and terrifying, yet somehow keeps you on his side. You root for the freak (affectionately)!
Then there’s Paul Rudd, doing what only Paul Rudd can. He’s the guy who says, “You’re totally part of the group!” while quietly hoping you head out early. It’s the best use of him in years. Also, after this and Death of a Unicorn, I’m hoping to see this A24-Rudd streak keep going.
Anyway, Friendship doesn’t wrap things up neatly. No redemptive arc (almost). No big finale (well, maybe?). Just the slow ache of being tolerated instead of accepted. The creeping horror of realizing you weren’t invited, you were just added.
I left the theater unsure how to feel. Confused. Touched. A little bit exposed. Like I’d watched an inside joke between people I didn’t know and still felt weirdly part of it. The audience was so loud, you would have thought you were at a stand-up show. Or like being trapped in someone’s living room at a house party where the host gets too drunk and starts on a tangent.
Friendship taps into something dark and deeply familiar: the fear of not being wanted, only included. Of being liked, but not loved. Of watching closeness happen just out of reach.
Sometimes the most intense situationship is the one between two bros.
Image Courtesy of A24
Is it funny? Yes. Deeply. But it’s also tragic, unnerving, and painfully honest. This is the most accurate depiction of social rejection I’ve ever seen onscreen. Ultimately, I gave it a 9/10, which is the same rating I gave The Godfather Part II. So, yeah, I loved it. Even if I still don’t know why.
