Movie Review: Apollo the Great Dane pulls at your heartstrings in ‘The Friend’

Dog movies are probably the film subgenre that most easily manipulates an audience’s emotions. Put a dog in a dangerous situation or have it reach old age, and the viewer is bound to be tearing up.

The contemporary landmark for this type is David Frankel’s Marley & Me (2008), which I remember seeing opening weekend with my entire family, and all of us were left crying in our seats at the ending. Scott McGehee & David Siegel’s new feature, The Friend, is the latest in the same vein as Marley & Me, but targeting the indie, middle-brow, mumblecore crowd.

As if the dog comparison wasn’t enough, The Friend is centered on a struggling writer, just like Marley & Me. Here Iris (Naomi Watts) is the longtime, close editor of respected author Walter Meredith (Bill Murray), and is in the midst of crafting her own full-length novel. When Walter suddenly dies, Iris is surprised to learn her good friend requested her as the next owner of his beloved Great Dane named Apollo.

Not really a pet lover, the middle-aged, single woman reluctantly accepts the responsibility while trying to finish editing Walter’s final book, write her own book and dodge the superintendent, Hektor (Felix Solis), who constantly reminds her that the apartment complex doesn’t allow dogs.

Noma Dumezweni plays Walter’s widow, while Carla Gugino and Constance Wu appear as his ex-wives, and Sarah Pidgeon co-stars as his estranged, grown daughter. The Friend is adapted by McGehee & Siegel from Sigrid Nunez’s award winning 2018 novel with the same title.

In many ways, the new picture is similar to Charles Shyer’s Baby Boom (1987), but with a dog instead of a baby. The protagonist is a working woman in The Big Apple who is suddenly struck with the responsibility of guardianship. A more recent example could also be Adam Brooks’ The Life List, but centered on canine companionship instead of romance.

A few things about The Friend did bug me, such as the unnecessarily long 120-minute runtime, and the fact that the film is set in winter, but the exterior shots look more like early spring. And it’s hard to see why so many women in Walter’s life are still enamored with him, especially after it’s revealed he and Iris began their companionship with a fling when the writer was the latter’s professor in her final semester of college.

Ultimately, if you’re a big fan of dog movies that pull at your heart strings or lightweight dramedies set in upper middle class NYC, you might enjoy The Friend. Otherwise, you could just visit Marley & Me or Baby Boom again.