Bad bromance original, cliché-resistant, complex

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Exploring the arcane mysteries of adult male relationships, this cringe comedy features cultie sketch comedian Tim Robinson (I Think You Should Leave) in his first lead movie role.

Channelling Robinson’s bizarro vibe, this feel-bad film is exquisitely uncomfortable and laugh-out-loud funny. More than anything, though, Friendship is genuinely unpredictable and that’s a rare quality these days.

Much of that unpredictability comes from Robinson’s sublimely strange comic approach to the character of Craig, a sad-sack suburban guy who favours beigey-browny clothes and a lot of routines.

Craig works at a tech company that specializes in luring people into addictive relationships with their devices. He loves his wife Tami (House of Cards’ Kate Mara) but fears losing her, a feeling he desperately tamps down. He’s unable to bond with his teenage son Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer of Shazam!).

But most crucially, at least for this story, Craig has no friends.

Taking a misdelivered package next door to the new neighbours, Craig meets Austin (Paul Rudd), an effortlessly charismatic TV weatherman with a handlebar moustache. Soon, the freewheeling Austin gets Craig into impromptu mushroom hunting and illicit explorations of 19th-century aqueducts.

Craig is now smoking herbal cigarettes and listening to punk. He’s signing off on conversations by saying, “Stay curious.”

But the best, best, bestest thing for Craig is the casual Friday night hang with other guys in Austin’s garage. Unfortunately, trying to be casual makes Craig even more inept and panicked and needy than usual. After a misfiring male-bonding exercise, Craig is banished from Austin’s charmed circle.

And then things get really, really uncomfortable.

Director and scripter Andrew DeYoung, who has worked mostly in TV comedy (Our Flag Means Death, Shrill, High Fidelity), wrote this movie specifically for Robinson, and Robinson delivers for him.

Robinson is one of those comedians who doesn’t have to say or do funny things. He just is funny. Friendship could risk coming off as stretched-out sketch comedy, with its abrupt pacing and odd tonal shifts and underwritten minor characters, but somehow Robinson, with his endlessly malleable face, awkward body language and weirdo energy, holds it together.

There are hilarious stray details — Craig’s preferred beige clothing brand is “Ocean View Dining.” There are terrific extended sequences, including a toad-licking drug trip that completely undermines the tropes of cinematic psychedelia.

DeYoung has a distinct stylistic approach, favouring a jumpy, jittery camera and odd effects that can be both beautiful and off-balance. Craig’s frequent fantasy sequences have the hazy, overexposed look of ‘70s Polaroids.

There are moments that call up movies like I Love You, Man (which also featured Rudd) and The Cable Guy, but Friendship manages to be its very own thing — original, cliché-resistant and even complex.

Austin seems genial but Rudd conveys glints of smug self-satisfaction. Craig can be offputtingly awful, but there’s something relatably human in his confused emotional flailing and his outside-looking-in unhappiness.

And that’s maybe the most uncomfortable thing about Friendship. This anarchistic comic take on bad bromance is also a startlingly effective comment on 21st-century loneliness.

You’ll laugh till you cry.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca