Our Friend
Gravitas Ventures | Release Date: January 22, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
57
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
3
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJan 21, 2021
The intimacy of Ms. Johnson’s performance is extraordinary. She is the least assertive of movie stars, yet the courage, despair and fury she finds in Nicole will lift you up and spin you around. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinJan 21, 2021
The film absorbingly shuttles back and forth in time, tracking key moments in the trio’s lives that not only illuminate their pasts but effectively prepare us for who Matt, Nicole and Dane become, for better and worse, when the going gets tough. It adds up to a skillful kind of mosaic that pays powerful emotional dividends. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 26, 2021
Some things remain a mystery. If we were a little bit better as people, this decent, clear-eyed movie hints, they might not. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 23, 2021
That diffuse focus and meandering narrative is the only real shortcoming in this consequential and touching weeper. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyJan 22, 2021
Our Friend is very good where it really counts and that's on the small details, the everyday life aspect of doing errands, cooking dinner, while your family is going through this harrowing ordeal. Cancer consumes the patient, but it also ravages the family. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiJan 21, 2021
Some will accuse Our Friend of being sentimental, and it is, but not in an “Oh no! The golden retriever was kidnapped!” way. It’s subtle. The wisdom of Brad Ingelsby’s script is that Dane’s assistance is unnoticeable until very late in the movie. His acts of kindness sneak up on you. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 21, 2021
Our Friend is both a tribute to a friend and to those rare people that are too humble to realize their own wisdom. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 21, 2021
Our Friend occasionally goes overboard on the sentiment. But thanks in large part to Segel’s huggable-bear persona, Affleck’s typically steady work and Dakota Johnson turning in perhaps the most impressive performance of her career, the laughs and the tears feel quite real. Read full review
75
The PlaylistElla KempSep 13, 2019
“The Friend” is successfully anchored by its three leading players ... The sensitivity of these performances, particularly from Affleck and Segel, offers a reckoning on sincere friendship and the limits of devotion that remains with the viewer, long after the days of waiting and the years of pain have finally come to an end. Read full review
70
Vanity FairKatey RichSep 13, 2019
It succeeds by sticking closely to the important specifics ... It’s a small-scale human story, precious few of which make it to film these days. It’s also, if you’re in the market for that kind of thing, an extremely effective tearjerker. Read full review
70
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganSep 13, 2019
A handsome, earnest drama ... This is a tasteful, respectful and thoughtful film about what it means to be a true friend in the darkest of times. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jan 22, 2021
It’s sweet and involving and occasionally even moving, but also, in its selective dramatization, a lot easier. Which is to say, it approaches the story itself rather euphemistically, handling the audience with kid gloves by eliding the most unpleasant truths of the family’s experience. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisJan 21, 2021
Aside from Segel’s grounding performance, the pleasures of Our Friend lie in some of its observational specifics about human behavior. Read full review
58
The Film StageGlenn Heath Jr.Jan 21, 2021
All in all, Cowperthwaite (who directed the documentary Blackfish and made her narrative debut with Megan Leavey) has a difficult time giving the film any sense of style. Montages pop up exactly where one would expect, and nasty arguments are given the classic hand-held touch. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 13, 2019
An honest but insistently scattershot true-life tearjerker ... Most of the fault lies with the fragmented, nonlinear structure “The Friend” uses to approximate the flowing nature of the Esquire piece. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 13, 2019
While the screenwriter, Brad Ingelsby, does root us in the minutiae of the trio’s day-to-day, it’s never in particularly interesting ways, and over an indulgent 135-minute runtime, we gradually grow tired of them, often questioning exactly why we need to know so much about their lives. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJan 19, 2021
The resulting film, while sporadically affecting, is ultimately a slog of gooey sentiment and needlessly long death rattles. Read full review
30
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisJan 21, 2021
This drippy drama presents precisely the kind of prettified portrait of death that Teague’s candid writing sought to rebut. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungSep 13, 2019
Overlaying the drama with the false cheer of lively music and bouts of humor, the story feels out of touch with the very emotions it desperately tries to evoke. Neither tearjerker nor very affecting drama, it defaults to somewhere in the middle. Read full review
30
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 13, 2019
So much of the unpleasantness has been scrubbed from the picture, until what remains is precisely the kind of dishonest, sanitized no-help-to-anyone TV-movie version of death that inspired Teague to set the record straight in the first place. Read full review
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