Friendship plays to Tim Robinson's strengths, though its funny freakouts don't amount to much

Austin is charming and easygoing. He’s the local weatherman, someone with on-camera charm and a job that needs no further explanation. Rudd offers up a slightly less buffoonish version of his Anchorman reporter here, just over-inflated enough. Craig, who—in a recurring, funny bit—works to make apps as psychologically addictive as possible, has a personality only a cubicle could love and a job only slightly less evil than Playground Cigarette Salesman. Craig’s wide-eyed and smitten, reacting like anyone would to discover their neighbor was as handsome as Paul Rudd. And he’s got a band. Stupid, sexy Austin.

Their burgeoning relationship, which involves some more ridiculous variations on the “relax and live a little” theme that most high-strung films involving Cool Movie Friends incorporate, naturally develops into one-sided obsession. And, since Robinson—almost entirely dressed in shades of beige, always losing his phone, always on the verge of a breakdown—is the obsessor, the intensity of emotion only ever doubles down, then doubles down again. Friendship starts its spiral early and takes its time going down the drain.

This slow-motion interpersonal car crash is in service of the vague stereotype that men don’t have healthy ways to bond, with Craig’s awkward need to be included flying in the face of the film’s variously adjusted (but still intact) male friend groups, which he is not a part of. Neither Craig’s straining nor the ire of the men around him (never quite as normal or kind as they may seem in comparison to Robinson’s panicking bozo) add up to anything particularly insightful about masculinity, but the script does build out its comedy logic in endearingly committed ways, with a few one-off gags—like a psychedelic toad experience that ranks as one of the best drug trips ever committed to screen, or a wrecking-ball-like cameo by Conner O’Malley—sprinkled in to keep things energetic. If Kate Mara (as Craig’s wife Tami, one of the only women in the film) had more to do, or even react to, the film might have an easier time defining the easily pierced façades of its flailing men.

Instead, the comedy solely relies on the textbook chemistry between the abrasive Robinson and the too-cool Rudd. Their dynamic, either playing off each other or playing with the idea of each other when they’re not sharing the screen, is strong, and DeYoung keeps them both contained to the right frequencies throughout the film. But this is a surface-level Friendship, a movie with which one can definitely share a few laughs in a group setting, but without the depth or intimacy to sustain a one-on-one hang.

Director: Andrew DeYoung
Writer: Andrew DeYoung
Starring: Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd, Kate Mara
Release Date: May 9, 2025