AFI Fest 2019 review: The Friend draws more sighs than tears

The Friend holds a dynamic performance but fails to inspire much emotion with a manipulative plotline meant to draw tears by any means necessary.

You’re entering dangerous waters when the point of your movie involves watching a person struggle with a terminal illness. If you do it wrong, the audience will want to race to the finish line at the expense of a character whose fate you’re supposed to care about.

Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite, helmer of the Seaworld documentary Blackfish and the war drama Megan Leavey, returns with The Friend, a movie about cancer and friendship that’s just as generic as the title. This two-hour sobfest may hold another fabulous role for Jason Segel, but it’s smothered with a maudlin domestic drama that’s as entertaining as watching paint dry.

Based on the 2015 Esquire article of the same name, The Friend is Dane (Jason Segel), a man trying to find his way in life. He’s been the best friend to Matthew and Nicole (Casey Affleck and Dakota Johnson) for years. When Nicole gets cancer, Dane becomes determined to stand by his friends through their most difficult time.

Any attempt to criticize the film is to almost immediately admit one is heartless, but the biggest problem with The Friend is how hellbent it becomes on wringing every last ounce of emotion from you — and that has little to do with the true story it’s based on. Cowperthwaite employs an unnecessary series of time jumps, punctuating each shift as either coming before or after “diagnosis,” a reminder that we’re only supposed to care about these people because they’ve been hit with the C-word.

Matt and Nicole are presented as a beautiful couple who seem to have met in college, though there are absolutely no age changes. When Matt first meets Dane, the two don’t necessarily like each other because Dane once asked out Nicole. And that’s the setup. When random characters mention Dane living on the Teague’s couch for years on end, it’s frustrating that it’s never shown. It certainly spells out their friendship more than one scene of Dane watching Matt faint.

The film is a two-hour push-and-pull between Jason Segel’s halfway interesting plot of being a man with little direction who finds his way while being a supportive friend and Casey Affleck reprising his selfish sad-sack character from Manchester by the Sea. It’s assumed the actor thinks this is similar Oscar material because there’s little to Matt aside from the fact he’s a journalist who thinks he should be praised more, who turns down women who throw themselves at him, and can’t understand why his wife wants him home more.

Because the film isn’t chronological, Matt as a character has no progression short of realizing he needs to actually take care of his kids. There’s no insight into why he feels so driven to succeed (short of reiterating the family’s need for money) or whether he feels any guilt once Nicole is sick. There’s also hardly any chemistry between him and his supposed best friend, Dane. You never truly believe any of these people would like each other, let alone that Affleck’s dour Matt would like the vulnerable Dane.

Segel keeps The Friend from being completely unwatchable. He carries the film on his back, and what’s irksome is that, despite the title, this isn’t his movie. He’s relegated to the supporting role when it’s obvious the story should be told through his eyes. Where Matt is prickly and hard to reach, Dane is loveable smooth edges. He’s a character desperate for love and a connection with someone, but he also has trouble realizing his own role in his isolation.

Segel is the perfect representation of a good friend, and every scene he is in instantly lights up the frame — whether that’s his quiet refusal to leave Nicole alone or his made-up rendition of “Call Me Maybe” with the Teague’s daughters (played by Violet McGraw and Isabella Kai). More importantly, Segel gets all the emotion and insight the other characters lack. When Matt screws up, Dane is the one angry. When Nicole’s illness gets the better of her, he’s depressed. Yet we’re meant to believe he is just one of a trio of tales. If this was a different year, this could have been an Oscar performance for the comic star.

The only reason to care about these people is once Nicole gets sick and it becomes a slow slog through the familiar beats of how Hollywood portrays terminal illness. Dakota Johnson suffers beautifully as Nicole, a former musical theater star, though we can’t say whether she was a burgeoning success or doomed to obscurity because we only see fleeting glimpses of her performing.

The only conflict is a plotline involving her cheating before she’s struck down with cancer in what ultimately feels like punishment. Because there is no added depth to Nicole, short of she loves her husband and kids, we never know how she’s felt about her past decisions in context. They’re just shown to make Nicole flawed? It’s a question that’s answered. She’s the Ali MacGraw in this story, meant to smile and be the beacon of hope and goodness in the world. It’s hard to really care about an untouchable figure, though.

The Friend is a misfire all the way around. Despite a stellar turn from Segel, the rest of the movie is a turgid tale of maudlin suffering.