A24 has released the first trailer for Friendship, an offbeat comedy that pairs up Paul Rudd and I Think You Should Leave’s Tim Robinson, the latter in his first lead film role. Take a look above.
The plot follows Craig Waterman (Robinson), a man perfectly content with his routine life. He likes New Balance shoes, Marvel movies, and Subway sandwiches. He has a stable home with his wife, Tami (Kate Mara), and their son, Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer). He sees no reason to shake things up—until Austin Carmichael (Rudd) moves in next door.
Austin is a local weatherman and musician, friendly yet enigmatic, confident but oddly vulnerable. Craig latches onto him immediately, desperate to forge a bond. Unfortunately, his over-eager and awkward attempts at friendship start to spiral out of control, threatening to upend his carefully maintained life. “Look, we had a couple of really nice hangs,” Austin tells Craig. “But I think it best that we go our separate ways… I don’t wish to continue this friendship.”
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Andrew DeYoung makes his feature directorial debut with Friendship, also writing the screenplay. His past work includes directing episodes of comedy series like Dave, Miracle Workers, and Our Flag Means Death.
Speaking with Deadline in September 2024, DeYoung revealed that the story came from a personal experience. “The seed of it came [during] 2018. I asked someone that I thought was going to be a new friend, someone I worked with…The job ended and I was like, I think this could be a new buddy. I asked them to hang out, and I got blown off, and I caught myself spinning out about it,” he shared. “I’ve never seen two grown men’s friendship fall apart in a movie in a certain way, so I just started playing around with that idea, and then it eventually became this.”
Robinson was immediately drawn to the project, telling Deadline in the same interview: “When Andy sent it to me, it was like the fastest I’d ever read anything. It was just really funny and sad, in a lot of ways, and I liked how sad the character is.”
Rudd connected with the script’s tone, also attracted by the story’s balance of humour and pathos. “I really love things that exist in that funny and sad world where everyone’s trying to do their best, but they don’t have the tools to do it well, whatever it is they’re trying to accomplish,” he said.
Friendship, also starring Josh Segarra, Billy Bryk, and Jon Glaser, among others, will be opening in U.S. cinemas in May.
