The Friend (2024)

White Ghost/Sad Pony

or

"What's Going To Happen To The Dog?"

As soon as it's over, you want to watch The Friend again. It's that good, with a literate script, masterful performances (from everybody, not just Naomi Watts and Bill Murray...or the dog, Bing), New York as a background, an intricately selected soundtrack, and the least anthropomorphic animal performance I've seen in a long time.

And, it's a "dog" movie.

I hate "dog" movies, usually. You know why. The dog always seems to die at the end, usually in the dramatic interest of teaching the film's protagonist a life-lesson of great import. Like "life is a gift" or "appreciate what you've got when you've got it." Blah-de-blah-de-blah. I'm cynical of the form because I hate to cry in theaters and beating me with a dead dog turns me into a blubbering wreck and I hate to throw away all the soggy popcorn. The one time I didn't was when John Wick's dog was murdered and that it inspired him to come out of assassination retirement (which I giggled at, finding it perversely ludicrous).

But, this one I rushed to see because, well, Naomi Watts and Bill Murray are in it and their taste in parts alone should sell it, some laudatory words online were mentioned, and it's based on a Booker prize-winning novel by Sigrid Nunez. All indications were for some good breeding of a project that was low-key and mildly amusing. I wasn't prepared for a great movie, but I got it in spades.

It starts with a moment of inspiration, which we're not privy to: successful author-teacher Walter Mitchell (Murray) is out on his morning "Two Bridges" jog when he sees something that delights him, but we cut away before we see what has animated him so. We see him at a dinner party where he is holding court, volubly telling the story of his discovery. By the next scene, he is dead—by his own hand, they say*—and the survivors are left wondering how such a thing could happen. What would the world be without Walter? There were so many projects in the air, so many things left undone, and he'd just met his grown daughter whom he—or any of his wives, past or present—never knew existed.

But, hardest hit seems to be Iris (Watts), ostensibly his best friend. Walter was her mentor (currently she's working on a book of his correspondence) and she, in turn, is mentoring his new/old daughter, collaborating on the book. Progress on it has been slow but, now, work on it—like Walter—has come to a screeching halt.

Walter's widow (Noma Dumezweni) has asked Iris to come see her and she has a request. Well, more of a bequest—Walter had asked that if anything happened to him that Iris should take care of his dog, Apollo, the creature that he encountered on that morning run.

"Apollo" is a 150 lb. Great Dane and Iris weighs quite a bit less and is only half-again taller. Plus, Iris' apartment is, what they call in New York, a "studio" but it could be a "prewar", but anywhere else it would be called "cramped" and if you were selling it you'd mention "simplicity" and "ease of maintenance". In no way would it be considered a kennel, and—besides—it's in a "No Pets Allowed" building. Iris is not keen on the idea and her "go-to" is to avoid the Super as long as she can and find a place to "re-home" Apollo. But, in the meantime, she picks up the dog at its temporary kennel to take to what she hopes is its temporary home in her apartment only to find that the brute jumps on her bed and spreads out, despite her protests. His forlorn look prompts Iris' neighbor to remark "There's a PONY on your bed! A SAD pony!"

A sad pony to be sure, but also the elephant in the room. Apollo is just too big to fit into her apartment without obstructing Iris' every movement. She capitulated by pulling an air mattress out of her closet and sleeping on the floor, Apollo's sad eyes never leaving her through the night. But, the two are bonded, despite the separate bed-places in that they're both grieving—she for her mentor, he for his master. One's a human, one's a dog; she's a loner, he's a pack animal, so they're both approaching each other from separate corners. And with all the inconvenience this big white ghost causes in her life, some accommodation needs to be reached, some compromise between these two living beings who've been left behind.

And, ultimately, value.

The Friend, unlike so many "dog movies", is what the AARP magazine likes to call "Movies for Grownups". The emotions are complicated and recognizable, and maybe over some folks' heads. But, a New Yorker will recognize the panic of possibly losing a rent-controlled apartment; an older person will recognize the paralysis of grief; a real dog-owner will understand the inconvenience of pet-ownership** ...beyond the dog-movie-cliché antics of four-legged tornado-damage to the feng shui. There are no easy-laugh slobber jokes. This one is about loss, responsibility, and mutual need. And a bit about survivor's guilt. And the usual "taking care of others is more fulfilling than taking care of yourself." And Watts and Murray are brilliant in this.

It's so good and funny and wise that you immediately want to see it again. Or, better yet, read the book to get all the good stuff they couldn't make room for. Sometimes, that's the best part.

* I suppose with the mention of it, I should give the number of the Suicide and Crisis Hotline—If you or a loved one are having emotional distress or thoughts of suicide, call 988 to connect with a lifeline specialist for support.—but DOGE only knows if it still exists. From what I've been able to access online, it does. 

 

** The other day something popped up in my news-feed that still makes me laugh: "Nobody has ever said 'What this house needs is a box-full of shit. Let's get a cat!'"

The Little Mermaid (2023)

A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle ("I've Got Twenty!")

or 

Mermaids Aren't Real But Racism Sure Is.  

Disney's The Little Mermaid was a revelation when it came out in 1989. At the time, Disney had been in the doldrums, creatively and financially (hard to believe, I know—this was before they found a new creative voice and, if not having it, buying it). Oh, they'd experiment a bit half-heartedly and always with an eye to the budget, which would constrain the imagination or goals. And the Disney brain-trust, "The Nine Old Men" as those original brilliant animators were called, were one-by-one dying off.

 

Then, Jeffrey Katzenberg came in on the coat-tails of in-coming Disney CEO Michael Eisner. A head-strong Paramount exec who finally tired of that studio's inexhaustible ability to shoot itself in the foot in order to assuage middle management egos, Katzenberg skedaddled to Disney and determined to take it back to its glory days of being THE animation studio. Directors John Musker and Ron Clements had the idea of making an animated version of Hans Christian Anderson's "The Little Mermaid" (not knowing the studio had once considered doing that in 1935). A Broadway veteran now working at Disney, Howard Ashman—with composer Alan Menken, the two had a hit with their musical version of "Little Shop of Horrors"—was approached to help with structuring the story and songs, and, together, Ashman and Menken took a Broadway musical approach to the proposed film. The result of that work is legendary.

Now, with Disney recycling their past cartoon triumphs as live action films, eventually they had to revisit this one, the first of the Disney "renaissance" films. The 2023 "live" version of The Little Mermaid is as good as it can be, given that it couldn't possibly live up to its animated version; this was the problem with Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and most of the others in this doubling-down effort. Live-action (even live-action enhanced by CGI) just can't live up to the pace of animation, so there are moments that drag and make you wish for a song to interrupt things.

As for those songs, they're the best thing about this version (although there are three new ones—by Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda—that are good but can't compete) and produce moments that are positively goose-bumpy (one song—the giddy and murderous "Les Poissons" was dropped, perhaps wisely). One interesting aspect to this version is the choreography for the already-Oscar winning song "Under the Sea" was done by the Alvin Ailey dance troupe.

Anything new in the mix that's good? Well, I like that they've moved the locale to the West Indies, as opposed to colonial Europe. That's a breath of fresh air and certainly justifies the Caribbean rhythms in the songs. And, the casting, certainly (and we won't even address the initial internet bitching...which never made any sense to me). As Ariel, the mermaid who wants to get out of the pool, Halle Bailey is a real find. Exotic of features to seem truly otherworldly, she carries the entire movie on her shoulders and belts out the songs exquisitely, throwing her own spin on them and taking them to a higher level.

I can't even imagine the tortures she had to go through making this movie—the location work on water, the constantly moving underwater shots that had to be done in front of a green-screen, and the awkwardness of basically having to work only from the waist up and project joy and grace while doing it. That's tough duty for what is essentially a first feature starring role. You think there's pressure underwater? Try pulling something like that off!

In the role of Atlantica's crusty-as-coral-King Triton, Javier Bardem takes the too-familiar pater familias character from the cartoon and, as usual, slyly informs it with little subtle bits of business one doesn't expect and appreciates. Awkwafina is a fine substitute for Buddy Hackett as Ariel's squawking friend Scuttle, Daveed Diggs is just fine as crabby Sebastian (although the character design is a bit...off), and, hey, Art Malik gets to not play a villain after so many years! I just wish Jacob Tremblay (who is usually scary good!) had more to do in his fish part.

But, the piece de resistance is Melissa McCarthy's turn as the sea-witch Ursula—the part played by Pat Carroll with such venom in the original. McCarthy is a comic gem, who has too often settled on sub-par movies that she has troopered through trying to improve. Here, she's got a great part, a great song—"Poor Unfortunate Souls"—with an "Angela-Lansbury-nightmare" intensity, combined with a whip-saw sense of timing that's simply amazing. And give some credit to Jessica Alexander who manages to match it for Ursula's human guise.

Even the traditional Prince Charming chap is okay (Jonah Hauer-King), unthreateningly handsome in a bewildered sort of way, the way Disney likes them. And adapter David Magee has made sure that Ariel and the Prince at least share the dissatisfaction of living in royally oppressive households so they have something in common. Still didn't solve the issue of why Ariel just doesn't write what she needs to say after her voice-ectomy.

But, there's another issue that didn't come up with the original and that mostly has to do with timing. In an environment when we've had Brave and Frozen in the children's entertainment mix, isn't the old canard about "true love" and a "handsome prince" pretty old-hat? Sure, it seemed commonplace in the 1950's and any number of rom-coms still depend on it, and, yes, the 1989 version presented it unquestioningly. But, they could have changed it, challenged it, maybe nuanced it a bit more; after all, the 1989 cartoon changed the ending of Anderson's story where the mermaid didn't get the prince and died. Children would have been traumatized, of course. The tears would have flowed like rivers down the aisles, breaking like waves against the concession stands.

Speaking of concessions, I don't know why, given Triton's apparent powers, he couldn't make things a bit more even-keeled in the sacrificing department of the Ariel-Eric relationship. He can give his daughter legs, but can he also change the Prince into mer-Eric? How are the couple going to visit Atlantica on holidays? Why does she have to change? Why can't he? Her song says "Part of Your World" not "I'm diving in with both"...(what's the word?) "feet." A little parity would have been nice. A little less stalking of the human, and maybe a little less "once they find true love it'll all turn out all right"*.

 

No one believes THAT fairy-tale!

* It's what bothered me about the Wonder Woman films, too.