In “Friendship,” a late highlight of the spring movie season, nondescript suburban dad Craig Waterman (Tim Robinson) clings to a beige, play-it-safe existence. He wears the same line of clothing (Ocean View Dining) daily, toils away in a bland, sterile office where he brainstorms about profitable apps and spends slabs of his off time at his home since he doesn’t have a male, or, for that matter, female friend to hang with. Even his relationships with his cancer survivor wife Tami (Kate Mara), who’s spending most of her time with her ex, and his son Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer) exist on a flat, same-old, same-old plane.
All that changes because of one delivery person’s blunder. Craig finds color and vitality in life once he hands over an errant package to his nearby neighbor, weatherman Austin Carmichael (Paul Rudd). Austin is everything Craig isn’t. Gregarious, charming and in possession of a porn-star mustache that works for him, Austin goes on to rock Craig’s drab world. He’s the epitome of cool, heck he even plays in a band. The two strike up a bromance that then keels over to one side because Craig is socially inept and, in the end, envious, qualities that fuel inappropriate interactions that get ever more cringey after a disastrous bro-out session with Austin’s friends. Concurrent to that, Craig’s relationship with Tami implodes after he takes her out on a grand underground adventure that he and Austin shared.
Director/ screenwriter Andrew DeYoung’s effective fingernails-on-the-chalkboard comedy is darker and edgier than standard bromances, including “I Love You, Man,” a 2009 comedy with Rudd and Jason Segel.
That shift in tone allows its two leads to play off their own established images, and it pays off for both. Robinson, familiar to fans of the sketch comedy show “I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson,” draws out enough humanity from his stuck character to make you appreciate him while Rudd, who pokes fun at his unflappable image, is given the opportunity to show the complexity of Austin, an image-conscious man who craves that others desire to be like him.
By making Austin imperfect and vain, this nuanced “Friendship” steers away from being a one-note navel gazer about the fraught nature of male friendships. It certainly offers its two actors and its filmmaker a chance to prove that they too have more dimension.
Contact Randy Myers at [email protected].
‘FRIENDSHIP’
3 stars out of 4
Rated: R (language, some drug references)
Starring: stars Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd, Kate Mara, Jack Dylan Grazer
Writer/director: Andrew DeYoung
Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes
When & where: Opens May 16 in Bay Area theaters.