The Room Next Door wasn’t the only Sigrid Nunez adaptation to premiere at fall festivals last year. David Siegel and Scott McGehee’s Montana Story follow-up The Friend finds Naomi Watts as a woman in NYC who looks after the dog of her friend (Bill Murray) after he passes away. The Telluride, TIFF, and NYFF selection was picked up by Bleecker Street who have now released the trailer ahead of a March 28 release in NYC and a wide release on April 4.
Here’s the synopsis: “In THE FRIEND, adapted from the bestselling novel, Iris (Naomi Watts) finds her comfortable New York life upended when her friend and mentor Walter (Bill Murray) bequeaths her his Great Dane, Apollo. The regal yet intractable beast is a constant reminder of Walter and causes various problems—yet as Iris bonds with Apollo, she begins to cope with her past, her lost friend, and her own creative inner life.”
Michael Frank said in his NYFF review, “Independent filmmaking duo Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s The Friend, their newest in a 30-year collaboration, is a dog movie. Or, more aptly, it’s a film about a dog and Iris (Naomi Watts), a woman who hates dogs. Iris inherits a Great Dane, Apollo, from her late friend, mentor, and lover Walter (Bill Murray). The movie, adapted from Sigrid Nunez’s National Book Award-winning novel of the same name, is light to the touch, despite its themes of grief, suicide, and depression. It’s the type of film my parents would love––something shown on a cable network on a Sunday afternoon, easy to watch with just enough substance to make the audience feel something reminiscent of sadness. That’s a compliment, though: The Friend reminds us of the immeasurable role that dogs, and pets, play in our lives.”
See the trailer below and read our interview with the directors here.