On Screen: “The Friend”
The Friend
Animal lovers … dog lovers, specifically … you’re gonna enjoy “The Friend,” a character study cleverly adapted from Sigrid Nunez’s National Book Award-winning 2018 meditative novel about dealing with mortality.
When celebrated writer Walter (Bill Murray) commits suicide, he leaves his beloved companion, a gigantic, black-and-white harlequin Great Dane named Apollo, to his best friend-onetime lover Iris (Naomi Watts), a stagnated creative writing professor.
Problem is: Iris lives in a small, rent-controlled Manhattan apartment that has a strict No Dogs rule. While lonely Iris is mourning her mentor, doleful, depressed Apollo is grieving for his master — and neither is ready to fully adjust to each other’s company.
“How does one explain death to a dog?” Iris wonders.
At 150 pounds, intractable Apollo resembles a small pony, making it no wonder that none of the other women in Walter’s life were willing to adopt him. Not Walter’s two ex-wives (Carla Gugino, Constance Wu), his grown daughter (Sarah Pidgeon), nor his third wife widow (Noma Dumezweni).
As the acerbic, misanthropic, serial womanizer Walter, enigmatic Bill Murray seems perfectly cast, while Naomi Watts exudes poignant vulnerability.
Next to working with a rather simplistic, contrived script, the biggest hurdle that co-writers and directors Scot McGhee and David Siegel faced was finding the right Apollo, launching a cross-country canine search with veteran animal trainer William Berloni. Eventually they located Bev Klingensmith, a dog breeder in Newton, Iowa, whose Great Dane named Bing was perfect for the part.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Friend” is a bittersweet, soulful 6, streaming on Apple and Prime Video.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.