You don’t have to be a dog lover to enjoy the drama The Friend — but it would probably help.  The dog in this case is a massive Great Dane named Apollo (Bing), and it is the dog that drives the narrative of this sensitive drama, all the while just being himself.

Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s film is set in the literary world of New York City, where editor Iris (Naomi Watts) is trying to finish a book of letters written by her pal Walter (Bill Murray), whose sudden suicide has thrown everything out of whack (and created more of a demand for the book).  Iris cannot adopt Walter’s Great Dane Apollo in her small rent-controlled apartment, and is threatened with eviction when she cannot find another home for the beast.  Gradually she learns to care for Apollo and to navigate the intense grief and betrayal she feels about Walter’s death, as well as her own unfulfilled writing career.

This is a movie about real people, real characters with real problems, and as such it is notable in our fantasy-saturated entertainment environment.  I appreciate the detail it takes in delineating every aspect of Iris’s life (except, perhaps, sexually, and even that is adroitly ignored).  It doesn’t downplay the issues with city pet ownership, yet balances the stresses and inconveniences with scenes of bonding and joy that come with the responsibility.  The two writer-directors avoid overly romanticizing the situation and indeed convince me that I could never handle the situation as well as Iris does — and it exhausts her.

Best of all, the story (by Sigrid Nunez) delves fairly deeply into multiple issues of modern life, from personal things like grief and jealousy and confusion to more practical things like travel and parkland within the city and the trappings of wealth.  My only complaint about the film is a minor one: it takes a long time to figure out just who the main women are in relation to Walter.  Two are ex-wives, one is a daughter, one (Iris) is his editor and another I’m still not sure about.  I wish the narrative had been more straightforward about Walter’s eventual fate and just how these women (Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, Sarah Pidgeon, Noma Dumezweni) relate to him, in all the ways that means.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  28 December 2025.