Friendship, the debut feature from Andrew DeYoung, is a film about male connection, suburban ennui and the kind of social awkwardness that makes you want to claw your own face off. It’s also, somehow, a comedy.
From the outside, Friendship feels like it could be filed next to Office Space in the great American catalogue of sad salarymen woes. Like Office Space, it centres around a man whose job seems to involve going through the motions whilst slowly decaying inside. But where Mike Judge’s cult classic skewered workplace bureaucracy with deadpan precision, Friendship veers sideways into a surrealist marsh where male loneliness, arrested development and toad-licking form make up the crux of the story.
Tim Robinson plays Craig, a man who seems like he got left behind when adulthood started requiring emotional nuance. His wife Tami (Kate Mara), recently in remission from cancer and even more recently emotionally checked out of their marriage, has started reconnecting with an old boyfriend. Craig, in return, drifts quietly through suburban ennui until he meets Austin (Paul Rudd), a weatherman and musician who embodies the kind of effortless charisma that only truly exists in fiction.
Rudd exudes an almost painful coolness. His character exists as both ideal and indictment: He is the guy who can make “just hanging out” feel like the most exciting achievement in the world. Their bromance is awkward, forced and increasingly strange and gives the film its central thrust. Craig’s desperation for connection turns into increasingly bizarre antics, culminating in one scene where he tries to apologise by eating soap while muttering “sorry” like a malfunctioning robot.
This is a film that begins like a Sundance-friendly indie about masculinity and quietly slides into a fever dream. One minute, you’re at a cancer support group listening to Craig offer wildly inappropriate pep talks, and the next, you’re watching him lick a toad in hopes of finding enlightenment—only to hallucinate himself order a sandwich from Subway.
If Office Space gave us spiritual awakening thanks to hypnosis-induced nihilism, Friendship gives us the same crisis filtered through surrealism emotional immaturity. Both films depict men lost in the gap between who they thought they’d be and who they actually are. But where Office Space offered catharsis (or at least a baseball bat to the printer), Friendship offers only mild psychosis and a weird hug.
Robinson is excellent, playing Craig like a man whose social instincts have all been reset to factory settings. His gift for making you laugh and cringe simultaneously is well-used here. Rudd, meanwhile, gets to play with the darker undertones of his eternal youth and likability—charming until he isn’t, vulnerable until he ghosts you.
Ultimately, Friendship is a film about male inadequacy, delivered with an affection for the ridiculous and a discomfort with the sincere. It’s not for everyone, but for those willing to hang out in the weird, liminal space between social embarrassment and spiritual crisis, it offers something stranger—and maybe more honest.
