SXSW ‘25: Tim Robinson brings his off-kilter kookiness to the big screen in Friendship

If you’re lucky enough to be neither, let me explain how a straight man makes friends: one guy respects/admires/perhaps is even attracted to another man he wants to spend time with. An overture is made, an invitation to hang out is extended, but there is a catch: both parties have to pretend that they don’t care. If the pursuer hungers too obviously for connection, it’s a no go. If the pursued responds too immediately, it’s a sign that the pursuer may have overestimated how cool the pursued is. It’s a delicate homosocial dance built on an awkward belief that a friend is only worth having so long as they have a rich social life outside of you, so long as they don’t need you, but still want you. It’s a lot like a romance, except that when you strike out with a romantic interest or you have a breakup, there’s a societal understanding of, and sympathy for, that heartbreak.

Friendship, which had its Texas Premiere at SXSW in 2025, is all about the strange amorphous heartbreak when a (mostly) heterosexual male friendship is ended. It’s also about star Tim Robinson continuing his streak of ego-less humiliation comedy in which half the joke is that he’s willing to act like that. The film follows Craig (Robinson), a married dad who’s clearly been coasting since long before Friendship begins. His wife Tami (Kate Mara) has recently recovered from cancer and is nearly explicitly having an affair with her firefighter best friend Devon. His son Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer) smooches his mom on the mouth and has no interest in “seeing the new Marvel” no matter how “nuts” Craig says it is. His greatest accomplishment is convincing the city to install unnecessary speed bumps in their quiet suburban neighborhood.

That all changes when Austin Carmichael (Paul Rudd) moves in down the block. Austin is simply cool. He’s in a band; he has a mustache; he’s a nightly news weatherman and spends his free time spelunking and urban exploring when he’s not buying Paleolithic stone tools. Most importantly, he doesn’t have a phone. Nothing is cooler than a man without a phone, in real life and in the world of the film. Instantly, Craig is enamored, copying Austin’s interests and reshaping his life to spend as much time with his new friend as possible. The problem is that Craig is a strange guy, desperate for love and affection, and he makes things weird. Almost immediately. So, when Austin inevitably pulls away, Craig is left adrift, angry, and alone in his heartbreak.

This, thankfully, despite sounding like a male friendship-focused Eternal Sunshine, is hilarious to watch. Robinson’s familiar, grating persona on display in tv shows like I Think You Should Leave and Detroiters transitions surprisingly well to the big screen, especially when director Andrew DeYoung and editor Sophie Corra keep the film’s pacing so brisk. While critics of Robinson’s style might point to the antagonistically long comedy skits he’s known for, Friendship is cut so rapid-fire that no joke overstays its welcome. It also helps that nearly everyone else in the film besides Robinson is acting in a realistic drama. Mara gives a quietly internal performance as a woman tired of asking her husband for the same thing over and over (a bigger car). Rudd gets many of the laugh-out-loud moments in the film, but they’re bits that emerge naturally from the character and, crucially, the audience’s knowledge that the character is specifically played by Paul Rudd. Robinson is the wild card in every scene, the man just a little bit removed from reality, vocalizing how insane and frustrating it feels to be rejected. As he screams at Austin in one scene, “You accepted me too easily! Who does that? You made me feel too free!”

And crucial to keeping most of the film in a pseudo-dramatic register is the fact that the film looks great. In the Q&A after the film, DeYoung mentioned that his visual inspirations for the film were The Three Colors trilogy (specifically Blue) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master—not usually the inspirations behind a comedy film. Cinematographer Andy Rydzewski finds ways to shoot a dark, moody set piece set in a sewer like it’s an A24 horror film… instead of the A24 comedy film that it is.

The world is drab in the daylight and dark in the night, making Austin’s (relatively) colorful outfits and sparkling personality all the more appealing. You really do feel for Craig’s desperate desire to be friends with him, especially when Rudd’s putting out the type of easy charm that defined his early career in roles like Anchorman or Freaks & Geeks. When you see the way Craig drifts through his drab life and low-lit home, it becomes all too easy to see how this friendship might be the solution to a problem that seems to pervade every square inch of his life.

It’s that desire to take the world and its characters seriously that drives so much of the comedy. Craig is, unfortunately, embarrassingly, relatable even when he’s trying to start a parade in his living room to distract from his wife’s hot firefighter friend. Jealousy makes us all do crazy things and think insane thoughts; it’s cathartic to watch someone actually act out those behaviors if only so you can think to yourself, “Thank God, couldn’t be me.”