Worth watching for the dog: The Friend reviewed

The Friend is an adaptation of the novel by Sigrid Nunez starring a harlequin Great Dane. If I remember rightly, Naomi Watts and Bill Murray are also in the mix somewhere but I can’t be sure. Who could notice anything but Apollo in all his noble, giant, majesty? Watts and Murray are fine – if they are even in it? – but Bing, who plays Apollo, is astonishing. It’s his first role, yet he must be a shoo-in for the Palm Dog prize at Cannes this year.

To be clear, though, this isn’t your usual cute-doggo movie. This isn’t Turner & Hooch. In fact, if you’ve read the book you’ll be wondering: how can it even be a film? Given it’s so meta and literary, given so much of it is about the nature of writing itself? (I’ve never read more Rilke than when I read that book.) This adaptation is a different prospect but Scott McGehee and David Siegal, who wrote the screenplay and also direct, do seem to have captured its essence. It is a graceful, respectful and intelligent interpretation, even if it may prove too dramatically underpowered for some. It definitely belongs to the ‘non-action’ genre.

The novel is narrated by an unnamed writer but here she’s been given a name, Iris (Watts, I think). Iris’s friend and mentor is the literary lion Walter (Murray, possibly), who has just committed suicide and has left her his dog, Apollo (Bing!) This is crazy considering she lives in a tiny Manhattan apartment where dogs aren’t allowed, and there’s no hiding him. (Apollo is so colossal he can barely turn round in it.) Walter’s widow (Noma Dumezweni) lives in a large Brooklyn brownstone but she can’t keep Apollo as she’s never been keen and now he has set himself up by the door where he whines sorrowfully for his master.