Friendship

For his directorial debut, Andrew DeYoung penned this dark suburban comedy about a socially awkward marketing executive who obsessively yearns to be friends with his new neighbor, a hip weatherman. DeYoung wrote the part of Craig Waterman specifically for comedian Tim Robinson. The former writer and featured performer on Saturday Night Live, who went on to create and star in the comedy series Detroiters and I Think You Should Leave, specializes in sketch comedy that leans into social awkwardness. I never got into the type of "cringe comedy" Robinson is famous for—even 20 years ago, when this style was fresh and hip, it still felt kind of lazy to me. Regardless of personal taste, this style of humor works much better in the short bursts of sketch comedy than drawn out over the length of a feature film.

There are certainly some laughs in the movie. Robinson's embarrassing dynamic with his cooler would-be friend (played by the always reliable Paul Rudd, who can sleepwalk through a part like this) generates some genuinely funny moments. Still, in a feature film, even a satirical comedy like this one, we need to identify with the protagonists, not just laugh at them. We need to see at least a piece of ourselves in a character like this and understand their motivations for the picture to work. And that's not really the case in Friendship. At first, Robinson's character gets into situations anyone might fall into, but how he behaves once there feels forced and illogical. It's all played for laughs, but the laughs are shallow since nothing that happens feels credible. Even though I've never found Steve Carell especially funny, there is a reason his movies, like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Crazy, Stupid, Love (which this film is reminiscent of), succeed where Friendship comes up short. In those Carell films, the laughs are earned because they feel more truthful and less like actors and a filmmaker trying to make you laugh. Comedy should never feel like it took a great deal of effort.