Review: "Our Friend"

 

If just a few years ago you would've said to me, "Jason Segel deserves an Oscar nomination," I'd have laughed right in your face. He's done a lot of goofball humor that's not my bag. But after his incredibly sensitive, layered performance in "Our Friend," that's exactly what I'm saying myself.

Casey Affleck, too, who stars along with Segel and Dakota Johnson in this unapologetic weepie based on article by journalist Matthew Teague. It's about how when his wife came down with terminal cancer, their best friend, Dane, essentially put his life on hold to move in with them and help care for her and their two children -- for a year.

Imagine "Love Story," except there's a third member of the couple dynamic. 

Dane is that well-meaning but wayward friend we all have -- they guy who can't seem to hold a relationship together for very long or find meaningful work that speaks to his talents. We feel sorry for him but also a little annoyed at his string of screw-ups.

Dane (Segel) worked as a backstage guy in local theater and dreams of doing stand-up comedy. But he wound up as the assistant manager of some little retail outlet and unable to commit to a string of girlfriends. When during one visit he offers Matt (Affleck) a little advice on his relationship with Nicole (Johnson), he finds his concerns dismissed because his own life is such as chaotic mess.

Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite and screenwriter Brand Igelsby ("The Way Back"), adapting Teague's magazine article, take the risky but effective choice of having the story jump around in time. So we'll see these three back when they were still youngsters fresh from college, cutting to deep into Nicole's long campaign against cancer, to some years earlier, and so on.

Each section is introduced with a typed title in relation to the cancer: "One year after diagnosis," etc. Rather than breaking the narrative up into confusing bits, it becomes more like a prism that we can turn and inspect from different angles and different points in time.

Early on Matt is a journalist working in New Orleans -- I appreciated the authentic dialogue referring to his newspaper as the "Times Pic" -- who dreams of working for bigger outlets, doing more important stories. When we transition years later we learn that's exactly what has come to pass, but now it's a thorn in the marriage as he's always gallivanting from one international locale to another while she's stuck home with the kids.

Nicole was an actress who loved singing on stage and being the center of attention, but traded it in for domestic bliss as mother of two daughters (Violet McGraw and Isabella Kai) and gadfly, the unofficial mayor of their small Alabama town. She's the sort of woman men follow around, and other women want to be friends with.

Why would a guy like Dane essentially put his life on hold for a year to essentially become nurse, therapist, housemaid and nanny for his two best friends? The film charts not just the time of the three of them together but also provides glimpses at his personal life and private moments. There's Kat (Mariella Scott), his girlfriend back in New Orleans who can't understand why he would abandon her to help care for another woman.

Most affecting is the recollection of a hiking trip he took, spontaneously, some years earlier. Gwendoline Christie plays Teresa, a German woman also hiking alone who joins him for a way, sensing someone walking down the same dark path she once faced herself. 

If there's a central theme of this story, it's about how each of us is alone and afraid, but strive to find the courage to reach out to others -- even when that hand is sometimes slapped away. The details of Nicole's descent can be hard to watch, but Dane is the sort of guy who wouldn't think of walking away when his closest friends are in need.

In the strange world of movie releases these days, the film actually debuted at the Toronto Film Festival to great acclaim in fall of 2019, and only just now is seeing wide release via theaters and VOD.

Somehow its arrival at this precise moment seems perfectly fitting. In a world of division and alienation, "Our Friend" is a beautiful and heartfelt story of loss and generosity of spirit. Bring hankies.

Review: "This Is 40"

Judd Apatow knows how to create amusing scenes, but as a storyteller he’s hopeless.

The prolific and popular comedy writer/producer/director employs a familiar circle of actors who are encouraged to ad-lib their scenes prodigiously. These are then linked together in an editing process that employs all the restraint of Homer Simpson in a donut factory.

For a sketch comedy show, that’s a great M.O., but for making movies it’s the equivalent of diarrhea.
His last directorial effort, “Funny People,” had a terrific first 80 minutes and then flushed itself down the toilet with an indulgent, overlong visit with the main character’s ex-girlfriend, played by Apatow’s real-life wife, Leslie Mann.

His latest, “This Is 40,” moves Mann from the supporting role to the spotlight, with Paul Rudd playing her husband as the pair deal with twin monster-sized mid-life crises.

Its demise is not quite so systematic as “People,” since you can’t pinpoint an exact moment when the film runs off the rails. But gradually you come to realize you’re trapped watching a bunch of people you don’t like who stopped being funny a while ago.

Knowing Apatow’s estrangement from the concept of brevity, I resolved to go into “This Is 40” not fretting about its length, and just let the story come to me. Finally, when it seemed like it was reaching a point of natural denouement, I looked at my watch. Just over an hour had gone by – meaning I was still less than halfway through the film’s interminable 134 minutes.

Some of the film’s best moments come from the supporting characters, of which there are plenty, played by Apatow mainstays like Jason Segel as well as newcomers like Albert Brooks, Lena Dunham, Melissa McCarthy and Chris O’Dowd. (Many of the latter have appeared in projects Apatow produced.) They get to come on stage, have a nice moment of mirth or pathos, and then dance off. Brooks in particular shines.

The problem is the main characters, Debbie and Pete. They start out as quirky and end up as contemptible. When bad things begin to happen, I found myself cheering on the forces arrayed against them.

Example: their tween daughter gets caught in a nasty Facebook fight with a boy, and then Debbie confronts the online oppressor and browbeats him into crying. Later the boy’s mother (McCarthy) gives Pete a tongue-lashing, and he responds with a violent, misogynistic screed so black-hearted that I rooted for her to bury her fist deep in his sinuses.

For a pair of folks who are both about to turn 40, Pete and Debbie are remarkably juvenile emotionally. Their relationship feels like an ironic sparring between college chums that never progressed into any real emotional depth. Love is more conceptual than operational for them.

They’re indifferent parents at best, greeting their two daughters with harried looks of exasperation, as if having kids is the ultimate downer. Apatow offspring Maude and Iris play the kids, turning this movie into a championship-level nepotism jubilee. The Apatow young’uns are not bad performers, but their dad’s screenplay only provides them with one speed/volume at which to play: the older one is constantly hollering, the younger one always teasing.

The family is faced with some pretty dire financial problems, but it’s hard to summon much sympathy for them, since Debbie and Pete each seem to work about five hours a week. Meanwhile, they spend like bandits – expensive cars, weekend getaways, personal trainers, etc.

He runs a small record label that is unsuccessfully flogging a nostalgia rock act, and she owns a fashion boutique where she occasionally drops by to check in on her two warring employees (Megan Fox and Charlyne Yi), one of whom is stealing.

The humor is pretty raunchy, although as with other Apatow flicks sex is more discussed than performed. Many scenes end up feeling more icky than amusing – as when Pete goes spread-eagle and insists Debbie inspect a growth in his… um, nethers.

There are some funny moments in “This Is 40,” but what there is tends to be clustered toward the beginning. Until Apatow learns how to get a grasp on story structure, his movies will continue to wallow in self-indulgence.

1.5 stars out of four