We need to laugh more in 2025. The world sucks. And as many films have shown it’s really fucking hard to maintain adult friendships let alone cultivate new ones.
Enter: Andrew DeYoung’s Friendship.
We caught this on the second screening at SXSW at 11am and were stone cold sober. What transpired was the most raucous crowd I’ve ever been apart of as an adult. It felt like I was watching comedy for the first time. This movie was relentless with it’s sharp wit and laugh out loud jokes.
The set-up is simple: a suburbanite (Tim Robinson) crosses path with his new charming neighbor (Paul Rudd) and becomes friends. Or tries too.
I will say at this point, you don’t need much more to sell you on it IF this is your thing. It’s not a movie for everyone. But if you like sweaty, highly quotable and very cringey comedy films, then this will be your shit. I felt bad for the people around me in the first few minutes who had to adjust to the pacing of the jokes (relentless) and it’s tone. I was laughing immediately.
Craig (Tim Robinson) is a father of a 16 year old kid who he doesn’t really know how to manage except Marvel films and a wife (Kate Mara) who is way out of his league in both ambition and relationship commitment. When a package is misdelivered to their house, Craig hand delivers it and that’s when he meets the charismatic machine that is Weatherman Austin (Paul Rudd). He’s invited out and soon begins their brisk friendship.
Craig is a weird guy. It’s hard for him to navigate this new friendship. He desperately wants to not only be Austins friend but he wants to imitate him. He buys a drum set because Austin plays in a band. He imagines what their friendship could be together. And just when things are going well Craig acts weird as shit one night around a bunch of Austin’s friends and the relationship is called off. Thus starts his hellish decent in trying to resolve the friendship and his family.
It’s something we can all relate too. Trying to please a new friend or partner. Attempting to learn new hobbies as quickly as possible only to fall on your face. While it’s non-stop hilarious it’s also a bit sad. You only wish Craig could see what he is doing or how he is acting. But he can’t and continues to fuck things up.
Shot brilliantly by Andy Rydzewski the film feels classier visually than your typical comedy. It’s a real living nightmare this suburban hellscape. Paired with it’s unbelievably tense editing, Friendship is bound to be a cult classic legend.
It’s absurdist comedy at it’s best. Somehow they essentially made a sketch comedy movie around the premise of adult male friendships and tied it all together in one of the longest, sweatiest jokes I can remember. Even if you don’t absolutely love the film you will leave the theatre wanting to hit up a Subway for a footlong.
