At a night with some of Austin's buds Craig pushes through the inhibition he feels was holding him back but it ends in him committing a massive faux pas. What started out as a kind of suburban Fight Club inverts to Craig almost switching roles with Austin who turns all normie after a promotion at work. This is really not going to plan.
Nothing is, though. Craig's family life is introduced after his wife Tami's successful battle with cancer. One of the first things you hear her say is that she would like to have an orgasm again. Craig, trying to cover the embarrassment announces that he has plenty of his own orgasms. When his son and share a child parent kiss it's on the lips. He notices and remarks on it but it's dropped. On an outing with his son at a shopping centre a middle aged man goes by riding a vehicle that looks like a pig with blinking lights. It's also commented on.
These moments not only save Friendship from ever easing off into cuteness they serve the film's modus operandi: destabilisation. Tim Robinson has built a comedy career on social distress with his I Think You Should Leave sketches. Their approach is transported here to feature length proportions. After Craig's faux pas with the buddies, he's given a dry and unpleasant breakup speech by Austin. He tries joining the smokers at work as they huddle outside but the guy's night in he gets them to at his basement lasts only minutes before he throws everyone out. This film does not allow its audience to get too comfy, even with its frequently bleak comedy.
Robinson fights for our empathy and we are surprised to grant it. Partly, this is due to the victimhood he suffers but it's also due to the motivations of those around him. When he disrupts a customer pitch at work what we notice most is that he's breaking through the falsehood of his own career. But then, we don't feel like cheering the self-destruction. He's neither a golden hearted jerk nor a corporate terrorist like Tyler Durden. If anything, his responses are the sporadically overkilling ones of Leo Bloom in the Producers or Sheldon's in The In Laws, given the switch he breaks it.
To the very end we have to guess where things are going as the stakes of personal antipathy between friends and family soar and the means to arrest the damage increasingly fail. Paul Rudd as Austin's change from urban freedom fighter to rat race running conformist is jolting but his counter in Craig's chaos makes it work (or at least explains it as a necessity). Kate Maras long suffering Tami's choices feel like she is waking from a lifelong fog (reminiscent of Being John Malkovich's Lotte)
There is a scene toward the end that repeats an early one in which the seeds of imbalance are planted. Its warmth and resolve feel like a genuine reward. This leads to another that suggests a development in the friendship but is left ambiguous.
I don't know if Tim Robinson can develop or refine his sketch comedy persona further than he has here. His performance is so committed and solid it suggests that his future career could stay at the one-shot that it feels like or into something else entirely. It's definitely not the stuff of comedy franchises. I'll be interested to see where it does go.
This is one for the cinema. Not because of any high vistas or action setpieces but for the density of its psychology that, while not academically taxing is nevertheless sincere and probing and would be easily missed if your phone was there to distract you. It's to be seen without pause and all the attention you can muster. It's a comedy, not the type that makes you chortle but smile with recognition and even sadness. In the year's offerings so far, it's among the highpoints.
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