More and more these days, movies seem to come with prerequisites. Haven’t seen the first seven Mission Impossibles? You aren’t qualified to discuss the eighth. Not familiar with the Weeknd’s body of work? Hurry Up Tomorrow will be lost on you. As for superhero flicks, forget about the latest installment if you haven’t seen all the others and the TV shows.
But when every movie is marketed to an audience that knows what to expect, maybe we lose something. Maybe there’s something magical about stumbling into a theater and not knowing why everyone around you is laughing hysterically before the star of the movie has even done anything funny. I’m describing my experience of seeing Friendship without having watched a single episode of said star’s beloved sketch-comedy show, “I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson.”
It was interesting.
The deal
Small-town digital marketer Craig (Tim Robinson) doesn’t demand much from life. His idea of an adventure is ferrying a cup of hot coffee down a crowded hallway or inviting his family out to see the new Marvel movie. (“I hear it’s nuts!” he enthuses.)
Craig’s wife (Kate Mara), recently in remission from cancer, is eager to try new things that don’t involve spending time with her husband. She encourages Craig to strike up a friendship with their neighbor, Austin (Paul Rudd), a smooth-talking local TV weatherman who has the aura of the coolest dude you knew in middle school. His credentials as the ideal friend consist of owning a prehistoric weapon, being in a punk band and taking Craig urban exploring in the town sewers.
Craig is smitten. Austin becomes his role model, the center of his world, opening up his workaday existence to such wild ambitions as playing the drums and driving a sports car. A fervor for living transforms him. When his banal workplace advice (“Just ask”) helps Austin get a promotion, Craig practically glows with the conviction that his infatuation is reciprocated.
Then Austin invites some other buddies over to hang, and all Craig’s awkwardness resurfaces. In the aftermath of a cringe-worthy evening, he finds himself friend-dumped. But Austin is about to learn, like Michael Douglas’s character in Fatal Attraction, that some ex-friends are not to be ignored.
Will you like it?
The trailer for Friendship suggests something like the Danish Oscar winner Another Round — a dark comedy about male friendship with absurdist elements, but still basically a realistic character study. Friendship is not that. It’s also not a thriller (despite the stalking aspect), nor is it a feel-good buddy comedy by any stretch of the imagination. My best stab at its subgenre is “Taxi Driver with killer one-liners.”
First-time feature director Andrew DeYoung is clearly targeting fans of “I Think You Should Leave,” in which Robinson plays a host of characters united only by their antisocial tendencies. The connection also accounts for a funny cameo by Conner O’Malley, a recurring guest on the show.
While “I Think You Should Leave” is bright-colored, snappy and satirical in its humor, however, Friendship has the dingy palette and leisurely pacing of an indie drama. In early scenes, Robinson’s restraint matches that type of film, but as Craig’s behavior becomes increasingly unhinged, his style gets broader. The overall tone doesn’t change, though, and Friendship falls apart a bit in its second half, wobbling from one potential story arc to another like a series of sketches.
Craig has no backstory; we never learn how he acquired an attractive wife who has the social adeptness he lacks or how he functions so efficiently at work until the Austin obsession derails him. He simply is what he is: an insecure, excitable, distinctly narcissistic, occasionally sociopathic fellow who makes Pee-wee Herman in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure look like a model of mature character development. Like Nicolas Cage, Robinson has a genius for putting every emotion on his face, and his weak jaw and schlubby demeanor only make the overblown reactions funnier.
While DeYoung’s screenplay initially suggests that Austin’s friendship brings out new sides of Craig, by the end of Friendship, it’s impossible to believe Craig wasn’t always this way. Perhaps that’s the film’s real message, unrelated to friendship per se: Changing our lives is harder than we think. Thirsty for enlightenment, Craig takes a psychedelic trip that defies all the filmic tropes of psychedelic trips to deliver a wet fart of an anticlimax. It’s so determinedly not funny that it is funny.
That’s true of much of the film. Once we catch his vibe — and it will take a bit, if you’re new to his work — Robinson’s line readings are consistently hilarious. We may wonder whether Craig could ever attain the self-awareness needed to laugh with us, yet it’s impossible to look away, perhaps because Robinson manages to embody every ounce of cringe that we resolutely repress in ourselves.
If you like this, try…
“I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson” (18 episodes, 2019-2023; Netflix): While not a true prerequisite, the show should help you grasp why Robinson’s fans giggle the instant he appears on-screen.
I Love You, Man (2009; Paramount+, rentable): In this comedy that popularized the notion that men have trouble finding friends, Rudd plays the lonely guy, making his casting in Friendship inspired.
Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995; Tubi, rentable): But to match the weird tonality of Friendship, you’d have to return to the deliberately off-putting indie dramedies of Todd Solondz. In this one, middle schooler Dawn Wiener rivals Craig in her struggle to relate functionally to other people.
This article appears in May 28 – Jun 3, 2025.
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