Aging and acclaimed writer Walter has died by his own hand. He leaves behind three wives, a friend, and a very large, very un-neutered Great Dane: Apollo.

How Apollo (Bing) came to Walter (Bill Murray) is part of Walter’s mythology. As the story goes, he was running along the river one morning when he came across the Dane sitting grandly at the top of a hill with no collar and no one in sight to claim the majestic animal. So Walter does. He brings Apollo home, tells the tale, and then leaves him to his friend, Iris (Naomi Watts), following his abrupt exit.

Iris is also a writer, though not as notable or prolific as Walter. He was once her teacher, briefly her lover, but always her friend. At least that’s how Iris sees it. I get the feeling Walter saw Iris more as his project and Iris saw Walter more as her father. The roles we inhabit can sometimes become muddled the longer things go on.

But is that the intention or the fault of The Friend? Adapted for the screen by Scott McGehee and David Siegel from Sigrid Nunez’s book, The Friend is long on mood and short on specifics. Characters are introduced elliptically, and it takes at least 15 minutes to get your bearings of who is whom and their relationship to each other. But it doesn’t matter: the movie’s jettisons them to focus on the triangle of Walter, Iris, and Apollo.

That vagueness could be a product of what liminal space The Friend wants to inhabit. That story of Walter discovering Apollo is told once and then shown later as a flashback. In it, Walter wears a red scarf and Apollo, significantly, has no collar. For the rest of the movie, Apollo sports a bright red dog collar. Coincidence or connection? As Iris grows closer to the dog, it seems her relationship with Apollo represents the grief of losing her friend. But is it also the unconfronted grief of losing her father that Iris graphed on to Walter? And what about when that emotion morphs into the pre-grief of losing Apollo? Again, things get muddled the longer they go on.

It’s all pretty saccharine, but then there’s the scene where Iris confronts Walter about his death. Spurred by a trip to her psychiatrist (Gary Littman), Iris starts writing about Walter’s suicide as therapy and throws her discoveries in his face when he impossibly manifests one morning. Walter is nonplussed by the accusations and the supernatural interaction—something Murray conveys quite well.

Is this moment the only one of magical realism in The Friend, or are so many other coincidences—solutions that seemingly fall out of the sky to problems that have been building for the entirety of the narrative—also figments of Iris’ imagination? The last shot has to be. If it isn’t, it’s a piece of horseshit adorning a movie that manages to strike the right notes in the wrong order.

I don’t know what to do with The Friend. The whole narrative meanders its way toward some sense of catharsis with zero urgency. If the first third of the movie is like a confusing assembly of people, then the final third is a series of realizations, each one sufficient on its own to stick the landing. Together, not so much.

The Friend (2024)
Directed by Scott McGehee, David Siegel
Screenplay by Scott McGehee, David Siegel
Based on the novel by Sigrid Nunez
Produced by Liza Chasin, Scott McGehee, David Siegel, Mike Spreter
Starring: Bill Murray, Naomi Watts, Cloé Xhauflaire, Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, Noma Dumezweni, Owen Teague
Bleecker Street Media, Rated R, Running time 120 minutes, Premiered Aug. 30, 2024 at the Telluride Film Festival

---