Last weekend it was a penguin; this weekend it’s a dog. Both films are based upon the unexpected, sometimes funny, and often dramatic, changes to life when an animal appears that needs rescuing; and, oddly, the livelihoods of the rescuers in both films are tied to books. If you are quick, you can still catch “The Penguin Lessons,” which I reviewed the other day. “The Friend” (Universal), is also showing now at the Montrose Playhouse.
While Montrose is certainly much more famous round the world for its birds, it is not short on dogs. Dog lovers who come to the Playhouse to watch “The Friend” will find the reason they keep a dog somewhere within the film. When I have asked people over the years why they look after dogs, I’m told that dogs understand humans, perhaps better than any other animal, and can assist in our emotional needs (a theme explored in the movie). Horses are well-established as having the ability to sense emotions, too, and equine therapy is a successful intervention for various severe mental illnesses. One of my neighbours in Montrose owns horses and, boy oh boy! that is a lot of work—she would probably say to me that dog owners have it very easy, especially in the winter.
“The Friend” is about the adventures of a middle-aged woman, Iris, played by Naomi Watts, after the death of her best friend, Walter. As well as the owner of the dog, Walter was a very famous writer. Iris inherits his 150lb Great Dane, named Apollo, because “you live on your own and don’t have kids or a partner.” According to Walter’s latest wife, Barbara, played by Noma Dumezweni, it was his dying wish that Iris should house Apollo. In any event, the dog is house-trained, well-behaved and never, ever goes on the bed. It is not much of a spoiler for me to reveal the place Apollo jumps to first upon arriving at Iris’s apartment! Her landlords are hostile to the new tenant, threatening Iris with eviction. Her various friends and neighbours (who play the small roles in the movie) are very concerned that Iris does not lose the apartment, as it is “rent-controlled,” and she would not get a similar contract in desirable Lower Manhattan if she were forced to move out. Iris, who teaches writing at a university, has been editing Walter’s letters into a book, but she has missed multiple deadlines from the publisher, and seems to be struggling to write at all.
Naomi Watts has to make a lot of film with relatively thin material. She plays the exasperated, disappointed, running-late, new pet-owner on the one hand, and, on the other, the apologetic, persuasive, and (occasionally) manipulative, perhaps unsuccessful author. Sliding between these two characters effortlessly, there is a doggedness in her performance that reminded me of “Erin Brockovich” (2000). The emotional success of the film is entirely because of Naomi Watts’ ability to hold our interest and express extremely familiar but challenging emotions in a believable way. She knows she will find a way through and does not need anyone else to pick up the slack for her. I liked the fact that the directors didn’t expect her to break down and cry in scene after scene, overwhelmed. And I particularly loved the two scenes where, being told “no—you can’t come in,” she just sits right-on-down where she is standing outside the door and says, paraphrasing, “I’ll sit here and wait until you let me in, no problem.”
Elsewhere, I would have loved to see more of Barbara. Recently, Noma Dumezweni played alongside Naomi Watts in the engrossing Netflix series, “The Watcher” (2022), the former stealing most of the scenes in which she appeared. I really wanted to understand Barbara’s motives during various key points in the film. Unfortunately her role is flattened by insufficient plot development. There are several other substantial female costarring roles: Tuesday, brilliantly played by Constance Wu, supplies one of the best comedy scenes of the whole film (inside yet another beautiful apartment), telling Iris she doesn’t understand why the dog needs to go outside three times a day; and Val, Walter’s daughter, cleverly played, in an unusually measured way, by Sarah Pidgeon, who delivers the cutting line that her father thought that Iris writes too slowly.
It is Walter’s death which sets up the dog crisis, of course. The background story of his women—several wives, girlfriends, an affair with someone else altogether, which led to daughter Val being born, and a hint that he was fired for sexual misconduct—is overdone, and tries too hard to prove that understanding Apollo can help us understand Walter. In other words, the powerful man who treats women the way he does is the interesting character. The male publisher, getting his female assistant to pour expensive Japanese bottled water for Apollo, does not emerge well either. The frenzy to publish is because “Dead Walter is suddenly hotter than alive Walter.” And why are Walter’s letters are to be published, not those of one of the many female writers?
Still, there is much else to enjoy in the film: gorgeous outside-shooting around lower Manhattan (the scenes near entrances to subway stations are particularly worthwhile), academic apartments with overstuffed bookshelves, the soft Christmas-background, which felt joyful rather than tacky, and finally the beautiful scene on the boat scattering ashes.
I have reviewed a number of films recently which have dismally failed in achieving an appropriate BBFC rating. This is the most inexplicable of all. It carries a 15-certificate, meaning that a film about rescuing a dog at Christmas cannot be seen by under–15s. But changing one plot detail (which is, again, about Walter) and dialling down the over-the-top swearing (which is thoroughly unnecessary) would have comfortably produced a PG-rating. Why Universal went with the final script is a matter for them, of course, but it seems an odd commercial decision to me.
Both the current pet-rescue films showing at the Playhouse skilfully charter a route to a good-natured emotional response from their audiences, without degeneration into cynicism or the sickly-sweet. Of the two, “The Penguin Lessons” has the edge—although the many dog owners in town might not agree!
Adam Poole
26 April 2025
*with thanks to Gordon Gekko (“Wall Street”, 1987)
If you are interested in viewing this screening, please book your tickets here
