'Our Friend' Review
R: language
Runtime: 2 Hours and 4 Minutes
Production Companies: Black Bear Pictures, STX International, Scott Free Productions
Distributor Gravitas Ventures
Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite
Writer: Brad Ingelsby
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Casey Affleck, Jason Segel
Release Date: January 22, 2021
Nicole and Matthew Teague are a typical married American couple. Nicole is a theater actress with a passion for stage productions, Matthew is a journalist consumed by his work. Then, there’s their best friend Dane whom Nicole worked with in a production. Dane may be a bit socially inept and doesn’t know how to incorporate any mature stability in his life, but he is loyal as hell. Over the span of a decade, Nicole and Matthew have settled down, raising a family of two daughters, until Nicole gets diagnosed with terminal cancer. Dane drops everything in his life—or lack thereof—to help the family navigate through their time of need.
Only at TIFF can a movie starring Dakota Johnson, Casey Affleck, and Jason Segel can make you tear up and bawl like a baby. I don’t know, given this cast, I went in expecting a comedy. What I ended up with was a tear-jerking drama that got me in my feels. Serves me right for going into this without reading the synopsis.
Told in a non-linear format based on the 13 years before and after Nicole's diagnosis, Our Friend is comprised of three strong central performances that surprisingly showcase the cast members’ dramatic capabilities. Granted, Casey Affleck has always been strong as a dramatic performer. Then, Jason Segel’s role as Dane bears the archetype of the typical Jason Segel role where he is the lazy non-committing man-child who doesn’t know how to mature into his own, but something about Dane in specific is so nuanced for Segel. His handling of this character is more mature than ever before and tragically relatable. Dakota Johnson is fantastic and displays the energy of a theater actress; anyone that has theater actor friends knows they have the most vibrant personalities. When the devastating moments strike she brings her all for a harrowing performance that leaves you in tears.
The most gravitating area of this drama (that’s based on a true story) happens when the story centers on Dane. After a while, you get sick of Nicole and Matt’s marital problems and squabbling, even before Nicole gets diagnosed with cancer. When it centers on Dane, you get this heftier dramatic story of a man with nothing much to live for finding his purpose. There are gut-punching scenes of reality that hit close to home in his arc. It gets a bit weird when Gwendoline Christie makes a brief appearance in his story, but for the most part, the best emotional sequences come whenever Dane serves his role as Our Friend with his loyalty to the Teague family. They personalize his story and explain why he feels so defeated by the banality of life. Jason Segel does a phenomenal job capturing the most vulnerable human moments of this kind of character that I feel it's one of his best performances yet.
The way this family is fundamentally built and the dynamic that they have is strong when Nicole becomes ill. The cold open itself is an emotional kick in the rump and the rest of the feature barely lets up. Our Friend is emotionally charged by its sentimentality and geared to jerk your tears.
What I love about this movie is how it depicts adult friendships. Never for a moment is it hinted that Dane is the third wheel to Nicole and Matthew or a threat to their marriage. He becomes part of their family and the strength of their unit is palpable. He is equally there for Nicole and Matthew, even on individual occasions. By the time the story reaches its finale, it’s so well earned and executed that Matt’s final exchange with Dave is ingrained in my memory and still gives me chills to this day. By that point, I was weeping and Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s direction nails the beats to make you bawl.
Marriage is hard work. A healthy relationship isn’t one without its hurdles. Matt and Nicole are presented as this couple with their own individual flaws. But, they both began to get on my damn nerves after a while, especially Matt. No offense to the real Matthew Teague, but the way how he’s written does him a disservice. I respect the honesty of his flaws, but how he’s written to be this selfish, work-obsessed partner who is often absent from his family life to put his career first put him in a very bad light. Thankfully, he’s often called out on his bullshit by numerous characters but after a while, I started to resent him like his eldest daughter does in the film. There are one too many scenes of him acting so self-righteous that it’s way too difficult to empathize with him.
The film doesn’t do a good job of exhibiting the loving moments of the Teague’s marriage, what attracts them to each other, why they share love, prior to Nicole’s diagnosis due to the ample scenes of the couple arguing. You get scenes of them loving each other for sure, but they don’t convincingly showcase why they’re in love. It just never came across convincing enough because the incompatibility between them was through the roof.
I don’t know how to summarize how I feel about this. On one hand, the Teague’s marital issues were frustrating to witness, but on the other hand, the mature beats of Dane and his relationship with them are handled with such care. All of the scenes centered on Nicole’s journey are great too. And then I cried genuine tears that were well earned by the end. Ugh. 3? I think? Yeah. I’ll go with that.
Rating: 3/5 | 68%
