🎬 #178 Buddy Horror
This week's film is currently out now. I think a lot of people will really enjoy it, if they give it a chance, despite it being a hard watch. If you're a fan of Tim Robinson's "I Think You Should Leave" or any of Paul Rudd's more obscure comedy work, you'll really like this film. And I do hope you seek it out.
Happy viewing,
Bry
FILM: FRIENDSHIP
2024 Dir Andrew DeYoung
1 hour 40 mins
You've heard of the phrase "dark twisted fairy tale." This is a dark twisted take on the buddy comedy, and as I mentioned, if you like Tim Robinson’s sketch show, this feels like one of those sketches blown up to feature length. So much of the film feels like Tim Robinson's own brand of awkward, honest, and brutally revealing comedy that it's as if he wrote it, but it was written and directed by Andrew DeYoung, who came up through making short films and posting them online.
He's had a lot of shorts that were Vimeo staff picks over the years and has directed a lot of music videos. So he really comes from that side of filmmaking which you can see in his debut. The tone he establishes in the film is very compelling. As I said, it might be really hard for some people if you find cringe difficult to deal with. You're laughing in disbelief at a lot of the moments, chewing your face in the process. All the performances are fantastic; Paul Rudd is great, just being his lovely, charismatic self. Their relationship is great; their chemistry works so well because you're really seeing the world from Tim Robinson's characters perspective, and you find yourself empathizing with him, despite the extremes of his behaviour. You experience events as he sees them, even though you understand that he goes too far. But every step of the way feels true to his character - it feels honest and tight in that way.
I have to give a very special mention to the music [composed by Keegan DeWitt] because I think it does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of the odd atmosphere the film establishes. If you imagine a more traditional score on it, it might not have that special, uncertain, edgy quality to it. But there's a kind of anachronistic feeling that the score gives the film that puts you on edge. Even the style of it clashes against the naturalistically handled shooting approach. But the clash between the music and the shooting style and the performances and the ideas really lends the film that quality of walking on thin ice. You’re really not sure where this is going to go, where this is going to end up—it could be a happy, hilarious ending or it could be that everyone dies. Or somewhere in between. You're really left guessing right up until the end of every scene. So sit uncomfortably and enjoy in a cinema near you.
* Available in cinemas right now in the US and UK and on Apple and Amazon in the US.
Fact: The filmmaker says the script was inspired by him dealing with being rejected from his own friendship group.