What do you do about problem actors? Wait it out? Sometimes that works—Jesse Eisenberg used to be a major impediment for me, now I like him just fine. Timothée Chalamet? Still a problem, but I don’t mind him as much ever since he LOST at the Oscars and put that awful Bob Dylan biopic to rest. And Tim Robinson? I guess I saw him in An American Pickle and Scream VI, but ever since his Netflix series I Think You Should Leave took off, I’ve avoided him. My heart’s open. But I’m not sure I’ve dismissed someone as quickly and as definitively as when I first saw Robinson mugging in a hot dog suit. Wherever that image came from, whatever show, whatever special, I knew then, and know now, is not for me. And I really thought he was British all this time.
Credit where it’s due: Friendship is the first smash hit theatrical comedy of the decade, and Robinson is responsible for its remarkable success with audiences. When I saw Friendship—written and directed by Andrew DeYoung and co-starring Paul Rudd—last Saturday night at the Charles Theater in Baltimore, the crowd roared the first time Robinson opened his mouth. Going back nearly 50 years, it’s easy to imagine The In-Laws getting the same kind of response when Peter Colombo Falk first showed up. A24 is distributing Friendship, so the movie can only go so far—this will not be a success on the level of The Hangover, or even I Love You, Man; one hopes that major studios will be less anxious about comedies now, knowing that if they lift someone with a hit show up from the dreck of streaming, they’ll have a solid base to build on. Word of mouth has already guaranteed that Friendship will make its modest budget (under $10 million) back by the time this article is published.
Friendship is a reprisal of I Love You, Man, with Rudd as the (at first) effortlessly cool and assured role model to Robinson’s anxious and insecure nerd. As in the 2009 film, Robinson’s character embarrasses himself “trying to be one of the guys,” alienates his wife, his new friend, and veers into the criminal. Friendship is lit like a horror movie, and Andy Rydzewski’s remarkably expressive camerawork—with slow Altman zooms and deliberate shot repetitions—establishes a base of dread that tells the audience someone is going to die. But unlike so many movies of the 2020s, no one does, despite nasty falls, stolen guns, car accidents, and the threat of cancer returning. Robinson, too eager to be friends with Rudd’s marginally more secure and successful character, begins harassing and stalking him; but he never moves into Single White Female territory, and ultimately the worst thing that happens to Rudd is he loses his toupee—twice.
Friendship is no classic, nor a patch on I Love You, Man, but unlike almost all comedies made today, it was clearly not made by committee or written by a robot. Robinson is a comedy star whether I like it or not, and he can open a movie. Again, one hopes bigger studios are paying attention, because the audience clearly wants to laugh and go to movie theaters for something other than horror. If Friendship feels scary at times, inexplicably so, perhaps it’s simply a reflection of free-floating 2020s anxiety; anything sunnier would be dishonest, less true, and, as a result, not as funny.
—Follow Nicky Otis Smith on Twitter: @MonicaQuibbits