Friendship ★★★½

Friendship plays like a psychotic break. Craig Waterman (Tim Robinson), from the outside looking in, is an ordinary man. He has a wife, Tami (Kate Mara), who recently recovered from cancer and a son, Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer). He has a job at a marketing company where he serves as a middle manager. The Waterman’s have their home on the market and will soon leave this neighborhood where they grew their family. One day, a package is mistakenly left at their home – a common occurrence – and Craig brings it to its rightful owner, Austin Carmichael (Paul Rudd), who recently moved in down the street. It is not long before Craig receives an invitation to hang out with Austin, which sets into motion the events of writer and director Andrew DeYoung’s wildly funny Friendship.

From the very first scene, one can tell something is amiss in Craig’s marriage with Tami. In a cancer support group, Tami reveals that she is struggling in her post-recovery days. She has struck up a friendship with her ex-boyfriend Devon (Josh Segarra), which has helped but she is bothered by her inability to orgasm. Craig, always the comedian and out to make things about himself, informs the group that he has no issues with his own orgasms. In this moment, DeYoung tips his thematic hand in revealing the nature of Craig’s narcissism and the fracturing marital bonds between the Waterman’s. Craig leads a generally boring life and while he is so wrapped up in himself, even he can tell that Tami is slipping away with Devon providing everything that he is not. The friendship that he forges, initially, with Austin gives his life new meaning and a spark that he was missing. The two go on a few “hangs”, chatting it up in Austin’s home and even going on quite the adventure under City Hall where Austin has found a hidden aqueduct and a series of tunnels. However, when Craig hangs out with Austin and his friend group, things begin to go awry.

The toxic and obsessive friendship that Craig shares with Austin, identifying in him everything that he wishes he had, launches Friendship and Craig into that psychotic break once Austin cuts the friendship off. It is only natural and not anything out of the blue, as Craig’s bizarre behavior reared its ugly head in one particularly bewildering action during the hangout with Austin and his friends. However, Craig is not one to let things go easily and if he can find another excuse to emotionally neglect Tami in favor of pursuing his own desires, then he is absolutely going to take that route. Friendship is a sharp and funny film, trafficking in the cringe and physically painful comedy that Robinson has built his career on with great success. However, it is also a thrilling and often painful dramatic work that pulls at the edges of Craig’s life to reveal the broken man at the center. No matter how many chances he gets to save his marriage and family, he will always let them slip away because he is not invested enough in his family to actually make things work. It is always about him, his interests, and his desires. For example, when Tami needs a new van for her flower business, it is only when he needs a “grand gesture” to win her back that he bothers to buy a new one. But, it is all too late and his life that seemed so idyllically cobbled together from the outside was built on unstable ground, especially once Austin is out of his life and Craig can think of nothing more than that lost feeling of friendship.

There are countless moments in Friendship that are genuinely hysterical. The cringe comedy works best, but Robinson’s sharp comedic delivery and DeYoung’s script that finds characters behaving and commenting in ways that are wholly abnormal makes Friendship a rich and consistently rewarding comedy. An early kiss between Tami and Steven sets the tone with Craig’s naturally bewildered response sending myself and the rest of the audience in my screening into hysterics. Robinson’s physical comedy and timing is impeccable in that moment and throughout, highlighted by the night at Austin’s house with his friends. A broken screen glass door and a bar of soap are two highlights with the latter the type of cringe comedy that some will find simply too painful to enjoy, but is dragged out so long that one cannot help but laugh at the pained expressions on the faces of Austin’s friends as Craig commits to the bit. It is often ridiculous and pitched at such a unique frequency that Friendship never loses its ability to shock or surprise the viewer with the depths that Craig will go to in his pursuit of Austin’s friendship or, at least, something is akin to it. Watching Craig break down in his office during a meeting or trying to awkwardly hang out with his subordinates are uncomfortably hilarious. His brief moments of emotional intimacy with Austin in a police station or in the midst of the film’s raucous climax highlight the central delusion of Craig – he always thinks he can get his friendship with Austin back – while finding the film dabbling in some great physical comedy showcases for Paul Rudd, who is terrific as Austin, and nailing the comedic chemistry between he and Robinson. The pair make for a magnificent duo, one capable of expressing the initially hypnotic bond between them and later the tense imbalance that sees Craig spiral so tremendously.

Friendship is bizarre, a hard-to-categorize thriller-black comedy experience that finds Tim Robinson’s cringe and physical comedy front-and-center. Playing an obsessive narcissist who the audience is trapped with for 90 minutes is a tough task, but one that Robinson nails with one unable to look away from Craig laying waste to everything he had in life because he did not get his way and everything was not about him. Robinson is terrific and wonderfully paired with Paul Rudd, who lends Austin both the idyllic coolness that Craig thrusts upon him as well as the insecurity that makes Austin an interesting character all his own. Kate Mara is stuck alongside Craig and plays the role very well, capturing the exhaustion at Tami’s core and the desire to connect with Craig at first but later the resolve and frustration at him never really seeing or caring to see her at her core. With a great script and direction from Andrew DeYoung, strong performances and the ability to leave one laughing and in distress simultaneously, Friendship is a wonderful experience and one of the funniest films released so far in 2025.