Friendship

This movie is based on a really shaky premise. That anyone would, first, be married to your typical Tim Robinson character. And, second, actually be friends with the dude. If you’ve ever seen Robinson in action, you’ll know the guy I’m talking about. It’s like Jim Carrey from Ace Ventura mixed with Adam Sandler from any of his movies where he gets incredibly angry and lashes out in really outlandish ways that would get him locked up — or, at the very least, broken up with — because of his cruel lunacy. This dude Robinson plays, Craig Waterman, is a real piece of work. By all accounts a disengaged husband, a seemingly weird (though I suppose trying) father and an awkward, edgy co-worker who is just generally an immature, anti-social anxious prick. I mean, perhaps we’re supposed to be living in an alternative universe where dudes like this wouldn’t instantly be red flags, but his penchant for wearing essentially the same clothes every day and constantly talking through a clenched jaw would definitely raise some alarm bells to anyone who ran across him. Except for his seemingly sweet wife, Tami (Kate Mara), I guess.

There’s honestly not a whole lot to cover with this film. Craig and Tami live in the suburbs in an unnamed state. She recently went through cancer treatment and because of Craig’s shittiness at being a supportive husband, she’s leaning on her ex-boyfriend, Devon (Josh Segarra). A situation that doesn’t seem to fluster Craig as much as it probably should. For some reason that I don’t believe is ever explained either practically or narratively, they are selling their house. Meanwhile, the local channel’s new evening weatherman, Austin Carmichael (Paul Rudd), moves in up the street. At Tami’s urging the incredibly curmudgeonly Craig strikes up a friendship with Austin. I honestly think it’s just to get him out of the house either so she doesn’t have to put up with how annoying he is or to smash Devon, but her character may actually just want him to have a friend. Because she’s a nice person. Despite, again, them probably moving soon? Anyhow, the unlikely pairing of the absolutely weird dork and the seemingly cool weatherman trends positive. For a while. Until it doesn’t. Because you can take the freak out of the house but you can’t make him not be a freak. And Craig is a freak.

In one of the most awkward and cringey scenes I’ve seen in a while, Craig spins out and completely causes the demise of his single friendship. Something we could and should have seen coming from a million miles away. The rest of the film becomes an escalating cascade of calamities as Craig first tries to get back in Austin’s good graces and then that of his wife. And then back to Austin. But, yeah, dude crashes out completely. And yet… in the end Craig shows his true loyalty to his new friend, even if it means his own downfall. Because that’s the kind of desperate idiot he is. But, really, the question is why this movie was made. I’m not talking existentially. I mean like it seems that it exists solely to be a weird piece of ephemera in the extended Tim Robinson universe. He’s essentially playing a version of his character from The Chair Company, with Rudd playing a version of his character from Anchorman. And, when pulling back on what happens in this film — including an extended set of very long scenes of first Craig and Austin and then Craig and Tami going into the sewers under their fictional town of Clovis — very little happens, and what does feels, at times, like it’s just trying to be weird for being weird’s sake. Thing is, weird things happen in The Chair Company, but those things are bizarrely funny and, in some instances, mysterious in a Twin Peaks kind of way. Here, Craig just does stuff that no human would ever do — and most of it isn’t particularly funny or amusingly odd. He’s an unlikable asshat and you spend the movie watching people either slowly or quickly reach this same conclusion about him.

That all said, I was definitely amused at times. There are always enough quirks in this stuff to make for the occasional laugh and/or quizzical what the fuck am I watching. Or even a few scenes that force you to watch through your fingers as Craig spirals into his terrible cringe hole. I do think the very end of the film is pretty clever. I mean Craig is still a complete a sociopath, but at least he’s a sociopath who has learned the definition of friendship. It’s a really, really long way to go for a punchline, but maybe that’s the magic of these types of comedies. You gotta stick with it and eventually you’ll learn the name of the act is The Aristocrats! Ta-da.