THE FRIEND — Naomi Watts & Apollo
Some Movies Give Dogs Dialogue. The Friend Gives One Grief.
This is the movie you were calling Best Friend. The actual title is The Friend.
And your reaction to it — “I was still crying after the movie ended” — is precisely the kind of thing I would keep in your criticism.
Don't sterilize that.
Because this column shouldn't pretend the critic has no heart.
Naomi Watts' Iris inherits Apollo, an enormous Great Dane, following the death of her friend and mentor. Apollo is played by Bing, and what moved me most isn't that he behaves like a human being mourning.
It's that he doesn't.
He waits.
He looks.
He occupies space differently.
He carries an absence.
There are movies that tell us dogs understand death, and then there are movies that simply let us watch one notice that somebody isn't coming home.
The Friend understands that grief between a human and an animal doesn't require a shared vocabulary. Maybe that's why mine lasted past the credits.
Bing's performance was widely singled out; the LA Times described the Great Dane as central to the movie's emotional power, while other critics similarly noted how much of its grief is carried through the human-dog relationship.
The Companion Cut: My tears were earned.
