When a solitary writer adopts and bonds with a Great Dane that belonged to a late friend, she begins to come to terms with her past and her own creative inner life.

‘The Friend’ is a movie that immediately had me interested when I first read about it – a friendly dog featuring prominently as well as Bill Murray?! Sold. The trailer certainly emphasizes these elements but this is actually quite a sombre drama about people coping with grief and the different ways in which they work through their issues. It begins with the funeral of Walter (Bill Murray), a celebrated writer who has committed suicide, bringing his ex-wife’s, current partner and daughter into the same orbit (it appears Walter was a serial philanderer). Shortly after the funeral, his ‘current’ partner (Noma Dumezweni), gets in touch with Iris (Naomi Watts), to let her know that one of Walter’s final wishes was for her to look after his Great Dane called Apollo, something she reluctantly agrees to do.

Iris is one of Walter’s ex-wives and like him, is also a lecturer/writer who had met him while she was his student (the ethics of this are mostly glossed over!). Like the other people in his life, she’s trying to come to terms with his death and work through her issues with him, which are heightened by Apollo’s presence. Much of the film is quite low key from a drama perspective, focusing on Iris’s attempts to bond with Apollo and adapt to having a dog in her life, while trying to get over her writer’s block that has prevented her from progressing on a weighty history novel on Eastern Europe. The only real tension comes from Iris being threatened with eviction from her New York apartment as dogs aren’t allowed, with a difficult choice coming up on whether to move out of the rent controlled apartment or give up Apollo to a shelter.

Bill Murray appears in flashback and in memories and his acerbic wit is a good addition to the movie, lightening a tone that could possibly have got quite heavy otherwise, as a lot of the other conversations are centered around grief and coming to terms with loss. If you like dogs and low key dramas about New York cultural types pondering their existence then ‘The Friend’ will be for you. I am there for the former and not against the latter, so this movie worked for me, but I’d have been happy if some time was shaved off the 2 hour long runtime, and if you’re making a choice between the two animal themed movies released recently, ‘The Penguin Lessons’ is the better of the two.

Rating: 3/5

Directed By: Scott McGehee and David Siegel

Starring: Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, Sarah Pidgeon, Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, Noma Dumezweni, Felix Solis and Ann Dowd

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt18108824/