Film Category: Comedy

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Every director reaches the stage where their middle-aged life becomes the narrative of the movies they make. Jay Roach has seemed to reach this midlife crisis stage that reflects the story he’s decided to direct, here Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Coleman star as a couple attempting to stay in love when money and age don’t want the same thing from them.

The film gets better the further it gets into it. When the main stars are free to play off each other, you feel the fractions between them like their your own parents. If anything a stage play with both of them would’ve been a better drawn out idea, the world around them seems to be what ruins it. In their young life they decide to move to the United States, and this is where it starts to feel like a US remake of an English sitcom which also includes actors from both sides of the pond. They are included for the easy one-liners and even create the tedious plot points of the story, but theres no chemistry with them and the main actors who you feel have just met on the first day of shooting. These people have no impact on the inter-dynamic relationship between the two main characters so it leads you to think they should’ve either created a plot where they were more key or just get rid of them altogether.

It takes a while for the film to find the potential in Cumberbatch and Coleman as well. Early on the comedy comes from the least comedic set ups possible, which they then reflect on in the next scene. To give an example, Coleman names her restaurant ‘We’ve Got Crabs’. A joke so bad that it didn’t need explaining by Cumberbatch in the next scene, but for some reason this is what happens. When the film reaches the stage of being charming, maybe not quite funny but charming, is later when its just them two in a scene on their own. You feel like they’ve known each other for a lifetime, and coming from a theatre background for both of them definitely helped with this.

You need to strip back everything to get to anything of worth here. Stature is another element that punches you in the face while the two of them whisper in your ear a joke. The characters want you to care for them as they want to be seen and loved. At the same time they are unrelatable to the every day person both in how rich they are and also the out of touch way they live their lifestyles. Of course films don’t have to be relatable to me or any person walking down the street, it just feels like a film too connected to the directors/writers background to really connect with the every day persons hardship in the face of turmoil. Jay Roach’s directing style when he was younger is more slapstick and irreverent. But now that he’s big time and middle aged, its harder to go to more realistic style of comedy that alienates a lot of its possible audience.

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Tim Robinson first leading role in a film, comes here in Friendship (DeYoung, 2024) which is a comedy about, as you might guess, friendship. This isn’t to say Robbins hasn’t created a name for himself in comedic circles, he already has a successful Netflix comedy show with I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson along with appearances on Saturday Night Live. What shocked me most looking into the film after watching it is that he has no directing or writing credits in the film. It matches so closely his unique style of comedic storytelling in his television series and quite frankly couldn’t be performed in such a perfect way by another actor.

If it isn’t the case that Robinson created the content in the film, it is clear that they would only have him in mind when casting it. He has such a unique style of comedic presentation that could easily tip over into a spoof like nature or being too played too straight. Robinson managed to walk this tightrope and create something that creates great comedic moments out of ordinary situations but also create a contrived story that never feels ill conceived. His acting style at first feels like someone who has never seen someone speak or act before, its over-acted and overdone with emotion. But this is what me and many others find as the appeal to it, many of the best pieces of laughter from the film come from putting Robbins into these everyday situations where his over reaction makes a normal scene become ridiculous. This is where Robbins stands out from other comedians, his acting style is in the same line as Andy Kaufman or Alan Partridge, it brings the absurd into the ordinary in such a transgressive way. It leads to a situation where even when he mentions where he bought his coat from, it leads to a gaggle of laughter in the screening. The funniest moment for me was a situation in which he takes a drug made for him to have a wild trip but in the end just leads to him visiting a Subway until he is woken up. Its funny because it subverts the ordinary expectation of what will happen and also his overreaction to it.

As already mentioned, the film performs a tightrope act and not making it too much of a pastiche or spoof is something that the film thankfully pulls off. The film concerns the friendship between Craig (Tim Robbins) and Austin (Pull Rudd), along with his family, where the film follows the highs and lows of these relationships to him. You still get behind the story and the interpersonal relationships in the film, even with the main character hamming it up at every available opportunity. This is where Paul Rudd’s character Austin comes into it, his performance allows Robbins to pull off these great moments of comedy by matching the emotional elements of his performance but never feeling like they are in a strange alternate universe then to the one in which we live in. They follow and lead his stupid ideas but never call him out for it as if he was acting like a child as this would dismantle the comedy of his performance.

Friendship is of course at the heart of the film. Throughout it is Craig hunting for the perfect best friend who he hopes Austin can supply him with. He has no care in the world how this might impact his family as having a best friend is something that he hopes for most. His inadequacy grows throughout the film and this impact upon family isn’t necessarily what matters, what you want more than most is for him to have a best friend in Austin. You want him to suffer as it brings so much joy and laughter, but you also want them both to be best friends at the same time and escape the world in which they live in to live this strange reality together.