The Friend

The Friend: French actor Alain Delon wished for his dog Loubo to be put down after his passing. He believed that his adopted Belgian Malinois has such a connection with him that if Delon predeceased his dog, it would cause the dog immense grief to lose its owner and would want to avoid such grief for its pet. (Eventually, Delon’s offsprings made it clear to the reporters that Loubo would not be put to sleep.)

How to explain death to a dog? Or perhaps something from an even deeper perspective that would not be easy to expect from the so-called dog movie, “The Friend” raises such questions, which adds intellectual weight to “The Friend”, a soft-moving drama on grief, that gives one audience a titan – a Great Dane named Apollo when Delon’s Loubo has gone missing and is supposed to be fed glue unless a compassionate person rescues him. Another people Naomi Watts plays that person, while in this formulaic crowd-puller designed specifically for dog lovers, there is slightly more than just tears.

It is very hard to express the loss of someone through death to any person since most would rather not wish to cross that bridge. It is unfortunate for those with pets as it is understood that many do not prepare for their beloved pets once they die. However, the famous novelist Walter Meredith (Bill Murray) was different from the rest.

He was welcome to both relationships and professional relationships with his students. His favorite student, however, goes by the name of Iris (Watts) who was also his lover and whom he left with a large pooch, a moose. The two, Walter and Irene had a moment together that was never forgotten by either child.

As co-directors David Siegel and Scott McGehee explain, recruiting Murray for a one scene role was a real masterstroke: Murray, who can wear a tough onscreen persona when needed, was an actor who instantly escaped recognition while playing a minor role. Personally, I found it difficult to keep track of who was who, especially since now I realize that Walter had three ex-wives – Elaine (Carla Gugino), Tuesday (Constance Wu), and Barbara (Noma Dumezweni) – many of whom show up at the man’s funeral, along with his adult daughter Val (Sarah Pidgeon) and close friends, and presumably Iris as well.

When the filmmakers titled this movie ‘The Friend’, did they mean Walter’s, Iris’s or the dog’s? That question is thanks to Sigrid Nunez, whose novel, based on which this adaptation was done by Siegel and McGehee for the well-known television series, has garnered praise from the critics. The book and the film can be read without searching under the surface for a man’s burden of losing a loved one by suicide, with the artist serving as Apollo and the story surrounding getting an overwhelmingly depressed being foisted on oneself, but they can also be interpreted in a rather different light as having an overwhelming implant of nature’s comedy embedded in them through KIN.

“The Friend” is almost two hours long and has very little in terms of action that could justify it being an adoption story based around an animal so perhaps it is best to allow for a much more profound perspective on other aspects of life, including past experiences such as death and other events such as animal adoption, and see how it alters the viewer’s perception.

A friend told me that dogs were created for little other role than to make it easier for men to mourn their beloved ones, which sounded extremely narcissistic to me, but it is indeed brilliant when one thinks about it considering that our life spans are longer and that the death of a dog would indeed stagger one.

What was it about Iris that made Walter think that she would be the best person to take care of Apollo? She lives alone in a small rent controlled unit at Washington Place where pets are actively discouraged. She and Walter had a rather morbid sense of humour, cracking jokes about suicide, for instance, “The more suicidal people, there are the less suicidal people, there are.”

However, she never expected him to actually follow it through. He is gone now and she will never know what he was thinking. Such is the tragedy of suicide; it brings to the survivors so many unanswered questions as well as a sense of confusion and anguish.

Iris takes the step of finding a new home for Apollo with great hesitation. Injustice, as she does not regard the great animal – “the dog’s dog,” as one of her students calls it – a constant relic of her deceased companion more than a new life under her care. Sasha’s building supervisor, the amiable but very tough Felix Solis, informs her that dogs are not permitted at the premises and Apollo is too big to conceal inside her purse and pass Felix. A benevolent neighbor, Ms. Ann Dowd appears to be encouraging, but what do these people think when a monster of this size, her monster, who needs to live in the house next to theirs? It is only a matter of time before the complaints will come.

I don’t think there is a worse pet to have in a New York apartment than a Great Dane, and in the streets of Manhattan, it’s even worse, which is exactly what makes “The Friend” interesting. There are episodes where Apollo drags around Iris’ leash, and at other times he is adamant about not moving an inch. In a nice poke for cinephiles, while people escort Iris around the city taking her dog Apollo for a walk, “Everybody’s Talkin’” was featured in the background (although such a film cannot finish within ‘Midnight Cowboy’ in delivering the drastic effect towards the film’s conclusion).

Regardless, dog lovers will want to watch “The Friend”, even if it all too conveniently ties up at the end. Before Iris manages to save Apollo, she realizes she has to try and need to keep him for a long time and ‘try’ indeed as Nemiabeah has to nurture him and to bear in mind this 5 year old creature’s life primarily is irrevocably closer to the end than it is to the start. In that aspect, “The Friend” serves the dual function of being an emotion of loss and sad anticipation.

I didn’t find ‘The Friend’ as compelling as others who have watched it, and I think that has to do with two factors. First, Bing the canine actor who plays Apollo appears to be extremely obedient, which is contrary to the character Iris regards as problematic. And secondly, every person in the film is overly polite. This woman is so obsessed with Apollo’s bad behavior that the moment he paws on her bed, she throws the towel in and pulls out an inflatable mat. It annoyed me that there was a lack of irritation from the characters.

It would be more beneficial for ‘The Friend,’ if any sort of catharsis was expected, that ire is also accompanied with the expectations of Iris or the rest of the cast. This very moment can be characterized as the beginning of the demain of therapy for the protagonist, but its twin, the one where Iris faces the specter of Walter, is rather forceful.

We can only dream that an author suffering from a creative block would go to such great lengths to seek inspiration for a book. But is this really the book Walter failed his star pupil because he expected more from her? Friends do not disregard any pieces of fiction- especially if they’re devoid of coherent writing.

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