Friendship, the first feature from veteran TV director Andrew DeYoung (Pen15, The Other Two), opens with chanting. It’s a primal touch, immediately placing the story that follows into conversation with something ancient—the need to befriend Paul Rudd.
On a premise level, Friendship is functionally a romantic comedy—roughly, it goes “oddball meets charming new guy, falls in love with new guy, then deals with losing new guy.” Of course, it’s in the placing of Tim Robinson at the center of a romantic comedy that gives Friendship its particular, one-of-a-kind shape. The marketing knows it—Friendship’s poster is just an image of Paul Rudd, essentially bottled likability, being crazy-eyed by Robinson, the best crazy-eye guy working right now. It’s not a poster inviting just anyone in. It’s a poster for the dummies like me, people who love Robinson’s coffin flops and his “b-b-b-b-basketball” lyrics and can’t wait to see what’s going to happen when someone new has to deal with the Robinson character.
After the chanting, Friendship introduces us to Craig Waterman (Robinson), in the midst of a cancer survivors’ support group. It’s—at least initially—an earnest, tough sequence. Tami Waterman (Kate Mara), Craig’s wife, recounts how she’s feeling a few months out from the worst of her treatment, and notes that she’s hoping “to orgasm again.” Craig, unsettled by the news that she hasn’t been having orgasms despite, ostensibly, the active sex life they have together, introduces himself, takes a beat, then tells the rest of the group that he’s been “orgasming just fine.” It’s that proudly awkward, dropped-dumbbell of a joke that snaps everything into focus. While Friendship is based in reality, it’s very much a Tim Robinson reality.
When Craig, who’s in the thick of moving, mistakenly receives a package addressed to his new neighbor, the plot kicks in. The package is meant for Austin Carmichael (Rudd), a devil-may-care nighttime weatherman. Austin invites Craig in, and they hit it off. Austin takes Craig on a mischievous tour of the city’s aqueducts, invites him to see his band play, and introduces him to mushroom foraging. All of these hangs lead Craig to lock in on Austin with the scary comic intensity that Robinson’s so exceptional at.
When their friendship falls apart—Craig gets off a cheap punch on Austin during a boxing match and tries to make up for it by jamming a whole bar of soap into his mouth, which… doesn’t do the trick—the movie drills all the deeper into its destabilizing central bit. Reeling from losing his one friend, Craig does what he can to substitute for Austin. But, being him, he cannot carry it off. He takes Tami into the aqueduct, only to lose her down there for days. He sets up a hang of his own with his coworkers, only to call it off when his coworkers refuse to stop talking about the “new Marvel” and making fun of his drums (which, as it happens, he bought to jam with Austin).
As Craig’s life spirals out of control and DeYoung and Robinson ratchet up the insanity of their quasi-romantic-buddies-falling-out hook, that chanting returns. While it’s, yes, a joke, the choice does have its touch of sincerity. Friendship, for all its orgasms in sewers, for all its speeches about wanting to still be in Afghanistan, for all its “pimp” Corvettes, knows that there’s genuinely a primal need to be liked by someone. And while it’s nice to have them like you back, they also know that when the wrong type of guy—e.g. a Tim Robinson type of guy—likes you, it’s probably better to’ve never invited him in in the first place.
