The Friend- Really Good Movie

I sat in a movie theater yesterday with seven other people to see a movie I had not seen any previews.  What got my attention for the movie was the Great Dane in a promotional photo.  I checked on the basic plot for the movie and decided it might be a good way to spend a Thursday afternoon.  What a good decision.

"The Friend" was a very good drama that has been under publicized.  The movie features Naomi Watts in a role that allowed her to show how good of an actress she is.  The movie based on a novel by Sigrid Nunez was a very interesting story about how a person responded to the suicide of a good friend and was left with his dog.  I was so taken by how well Naomi Watts was able to say so much with her eyes and her expressions in this movie and how that dramatically contributed to the quality of the movie.  

The movie was well written and allowed the actors in the movie to act.  The other very good and interesting performance was by Bill Murray who played the man who selfishly committed suicide.  The movie did not dwell on the morose however and Murray was excellent in portraying a somewhat disjointed personality.  

Bing was the Great Dane in the movie and the directors, David Siegel and Scott McGehee did an exceptional job of getting just the right camera shots of the dog in key situations to tell a solid story. I am sure it is not the easiest thing to "direct" a dog in a movie, but the shots of Bing were poignant.

When I thought back on the movie, one of the key points in the movie for me was when Naomi Watts appeared to come to grips with the dilemma of who was the support in her relationship with Bing. Was she his support person or was he her support dog?  Such a good moment in a movie. 

I know I'm highly sensitive to all of the four-letter words used in movies and print these days and I have yet to find a movie or book where the excessive use of the F-word actually contributed to the quality of the project.  The F-word was used several times in this movie and contributed absolutely nothing to the quality or authenticity of the movie. To me, it distracted the viewer from the story. This was the only downside of the movie.  

Kudos to a good drama that was artistically good and did not leave us depressed because the dog died.  Many thanks to Naomi Watts for a superb performance.