Friendship

A24’s FRIENDSHIP 🥁 

When hanging with the boys goes severely, painfully, hysterically wrong.

A24’s dark buddy-comedy movie FRIENDSHIP stars Tim Robinson (I Think You Should Leave, Detroiters) as complacent family man Craig Waterman, who ends up being befriended by the charming local weatherman Austin Carmichael (Paul Rudd—Ant-Man, Clueless, Death of a Unicorn) after delivering his misplaced mail.

Austin has everything Craig does not: popularity, a colourful life, and, of course, friends, so Craig understandably becomes enamoured with this newfound bromance. Unfortunately, his new claim to FRIENDSHIP is short-lived when he takes his first guys night too far, leading to a crash-out for the ages.

I want to start off by saying DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER.

Comedy and horror are two genres of movies where you can think the story as a whole didn’t work, but there can still be bits and pieces within it that you will remember well after your watch has ended. It’s annoying (in a good way) that this trailer has had me hooked since the moment I saw it, so much so that when the scenes from the trailer ended up in the movie, I remembered what was going to happen, which I felt ruined some of the punch line moments from my viewing experience. Those punch lines were a mix of what-the-f*ck awkward laughs, me legitimately laughing out loud at the absurdity of what was taking place on screen, and chuckles of secondhand embarrassment from the cringey train wreck that is Craig Waterman.

The movie itself isn’t a train wreck, but watching Tim Robinson try to be a guys-guy or a friend to anyone is excruciatingly painful, like a car crash you can’t look away from. What makes it even worse (in an entertaining way) is these subtle adjustments he makes that seem like a breakthrough for him to finally navigate these uncharted social circles, but they just end up being more moments that show he is completely out of his depths.

As a viewer you become mortified by his continued inability to read social cues which this magnifies over and over again to the point you can tell he's disregarded his life of complacency for the sake of wanting to relive an adventurous moment that should've remained just that, a moment. It's a classic case of leaving a night as a night, and appreciating the core memory you just made instead of trying to force a fantasy of a bromance into a regular occurrence for life.

While watching this, I also started to think to myself, how does one make friends? I never really consciously thought about it. At the gym, "Yo, can you spot me?" can be a one-time thing or can turn into training partners, a game of hoops can lead to playing rec leagues together, and even banter at the office can turn into lunches or hangs. Those seem so organic, but when you see Craig actively try to force friendship, there's something so off-putting about it that will make you never want to strike up a conversation with someone new ever again lol.

This is one of those movies you have to see for yourself because I can give you my thoughts, and you can see review scores, but there is so much uncomfortable chaos to unpack that can't be relayed without giving away the best parts of the movie.

At its core, FRIENDSHIP is a bromantic breakup comedy, yet it plays a balancing act of deception by leaning into horror theatrics and embarrassingly demonstrating how easy it is to spiral out of control when you try to force what no longer exists. 

Enjoy!

7.2/10 🍿 🎥

Runtime: 1hr41mins

Where: Now Playing In Theatres

A24 Friendship Review (2025) The Richmond Reviewer - May 17th, 2025.

#Friendship #A24 #PaulRudd #TimRobinson #Comedy #MovieReview #Movie #VVSFilms