I went into my viewing of Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s (Megan Leavey, Blackfish) Our Friend, knowing almost nothing. I hadn’t seen a single trailer or read even a sentence of a single review. All I knew was that the movie starred Casey Affleck, a drama based on a true story, and had both an audience and critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes that exceeded 85%. It was enough for me to give an unknown movie a chance. I was rewarded with a film that, while incredibly uneven, delivered in a deeply affecting way for which I was ill-prepared. This incredibly poignant movie is not for everyone. Bring your tissues. If you are a cancer survivor or were with someone during their successful or unsuccessful battle with cancer, be forewarned that Our Friend could bring on some incredibly intense emotions, some of which you have been consciously or unconsciously suppressing. Its final act strikes you at your core while also humbling you at the same time.

This movie will be chock full of spoilers, so I suggest only reading past this paragraph if you’ve seen the movie. I would not encourage everyone to watch the film. You’ll need to be prepared for it. If you’ve had cancer, knew someone, or know someone who had cancer and you were with them during those most difficult of times, tread cautiously. This movie will trigger memories of that time, and you will be overwhelmed. You might not be able to handle the authenticity of what you are about to witness.

Our Friend is far from perfect. It is a meandering path from the first scene of Nicole’s (Dakota Johnson – The Peanut Butter Falcon, Fifty Shades of Grey) diagnosis of Ovarian Cancer to its powerful final punch some two years later. Along the way, we go for a wild ride of non-linear flashbacks that attempt to piece together parts and give each of our leading players some semblance. It doesn’t work. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, that I love a movie that successfully incorporates flashbacks. When flashbacks work, they effectively advance the character and the plot. They fit effortlessly into the storytelling and become something you look forward to. When they don’t work, they appear as forced (or at least unnatural) bits and pieces that can seem like afterthoughts, used as devices to justify gaps in a choppy story. But this fragmented chronology where we go back three years, forward six years, back seven years, ahead three years, etc., is demanding at best and distracting or careless at its worst.

Jason Segel (The End of the Tour, I Love You, Man) stars as Dane, a man who seems to pass his days rather than live them. He works at a used sporting goods store while moonlighting as a stagehand at a local theater in Fairhope, Alabama, where Nicole is an aspiring actress. We don’t learn everything we would like to know about Dane. Even when we are with him, it’s like we are watching him like a casual observer. He may suffer from depression, it may be a lack of ambition, it may be low self-esteem, or it may just be that he hasn’t found what makes him happy yet. We learn through a conversation between him and Matt (Affleck – Manchester by the Sea, Light of My Life) that he once had a crush on Nicole and had asked her out, not knowing that she was married to Matt. This is one of quite a few scenes where direct dialogue is awkwardly interjected to drive home a point or to foreshadow something that is to come. It doesn’t go unnoticed how forced this comes across. It detracts from the movie but is not a dealbreaker.

When Dane learns of Nicole’s diagnosis, he visits the family from his (now) New Orleans home. He notices how overwhelmed Matt and Nicole are, both with her illness and their elementary school-aged daughters Evie and Molly. He agrees to take some time off from his job and help around the house by driving the girls to school and practices, cooking, shopping, cleaning the house, and more. We often forget that many pieces continue in our lives even when we receive a life-changing event. Clothes don’t wash on their own. Meals don’t cook themselves. Kids still have homework to do and school projects that need completing. A couple of weeks turn into something much, much longer. Dane has a clear moral compass and believes he needs to be with the family for as long as they need him. This is amplified as the trio sees more and more friends slowly drift away as the illness intensifies, which isn’t unusual but sad. Cowperthwaite makes it known a handful of times through flashbacks and present-day adored Nicole and how much life she brought to others when she was healthy. Though we always feel distant from Dane, we know that he has a heart of gold, is all in with helping the family, and is a true friend in every sense of the word.

Johnson and Affleck have great chemistry. We get to know them at several different times in their marriage. As you would expect with all relationships, some moments are better than others. His work as a journalist keeps him busy, and it often feels divisive. He believes he needs to take long-term assignments in all corners of the world because the family needs the money. She wants him to be at home. Once ambitious, she’s become more of a homebody once the couple had children. Once more of a homebody, he becomes more ambitious and feels he can’t say no to an assignment. Distance damages their relationship in several different ways. Her cancer diagnosis slows down both of their lives and, of course, allows them to focus on what’s important and to come together. Of course, this doesn’t solve their existing problems or keep new problems from happening. Still, they are in it together. And you believe them. Their marriage is far from perfect, but he’s not going anywhere, and she’s not isolating herself from his support and love.

For this story to work, it needed to be based on a true story. I say that for a couple of reasons. This movie is not a fairytale, but in our culture, people often have hidden agendas under ulterior motives when they do something TOO nice or TOO selfless. Unfortunately, we second-guess altruism, but that’s where we are in this day and age. It would have been far too easy to create a fictional character like Dane than to revolve a story around a natural person who saw a situation and could give himself so selflessly to provide care for a family in need.

Cowperthwaite perfectly crafted the ending of her movie. When Dane tells Matt at the end of the film, “I thought you were writing about Nicole the whole time,” there is a certain “ah-ha” moment. At that moment, I realized for the first time that this entire film was about Dane and not Nicole. The title change from The Friend (the name of the article written in Esquire) to Our Friend was intentional and genius. With the former name, you would have expected the movie to be around Dane. With the latter, somebody could infer that the movie poster’s design, the way the introduction of the film, and the centralization around the married couple early were Nicole and Matt’s story, and Dane played a massive role in helping to secure their relationship.

Besieged by a storyboard that created a lazy and convoluted timeline, Our Friend manages to survive its early audience confusion with excellent performances by each of its three leads. Siegel, Johnson, and Affleck each create multi-layered characters who bring us comfort as we battle Nicole’s sickness with each of them. No character is perfect, nor does any of them try to be. These are three adults and two young children fighting through each day, never quite knowing what to expect. They have to continue doing mundane things such as going to the grocery store, attending to household chores, completing homework, and even relaxing while not knowing if it will be a good or bad day for Nicole. Others’ lives aren’t put on hold while a very sick person slowly but surely passes away.

This movie evoked some personal memories that I had suppressed. I won’t expand on the details, but I lost someone very close to me in a similar fashion to how Nicole’s life ended. I wasn’t as close to Matt and Dane’s situation, but I certainly thought I was until this movie. The third act of Our Friend is as difficult as 40 minutes, which I hope to experience this entire year. It was grueling, lifelike, and hit so far close to home. I was unnerved by seeing what I did know about cancer and hospice play out in front of me and terrified by seeing what I did not know. The movie becomes real once hospice nurse Faith (Cherry Jones – Erin Brokovich, Boy Erased) enters the picture. We experience the shock and awe of the situation with Matt and Dane. Faith becomes our narrator to the end, taking us to the same depths that she takes Matt and Dane to, even when she tells us what will happen and how we still can’t believe it.

The third act is not rushed, but things happen quickly. At the same time, I’m not sure we, as an audience, could take too much more of the grueling death. I can’t remember a time in a movie theater when my jaw hung ajar. I was amazed by how well the hospice scenes came across. This review was not one that I had planned on writing when I wrote it, but there was so much I wanted to say. As I processed the film, I realized I didn’t want to share my experiences. I’m not sure I have the right to go in-depth in a public forum, and in the 24 hours since viewing this film, I have come to the conclusion that I’d be marginalizing what those closer to my unique situation went through if I even tried to describe it from my lens. I will say that my heart goes out to those spouses, parents, children, and other caregivers of anyone battling this terrible disease.

Our Friend is a brutal movie because of how real it feels. A situation such as Nicole’s, Matt’s, or Dane’s could occur to any of us.

Plot 8.5/10
Character Development 9/10
Character Chemistry 9.5/10
Acting 9.5/10
Screenplay 8.5/10
Directing 8/10
Cinematography 8/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 8.5/10
Universal Relevance 10/10
87.5%

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