Our Friend


Our Friend is a drama film, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, from a screenplay by Brad Ingelsby. It stars Casey Affleck, Dakota Johnson and Jason Segel.
It had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2019.

Premise

Nicole and Matthew Teague, faced with Nicole’s impending death, see their best friend move in to help them out.

Cast

In January 2019, it was announced Casey Affleck, Dakota Johnson, Jason Segel and Jake Owen had been cast in the film, with Gabriela Cowperthwaite directing from a screenplay by Brad Ingelsby, based upon an Esquire article. Gwendoline Christie and Cherry Jones were among additional casting announced in February.
Filming began on February 19, 2019 in Fairhope, Alabama.

Release

It had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2019. It also was screened at AFI Fest on November 16, 2019. In January 2020, Roadside Attractions and Gravitas Ventures acquired distribution rights to the film.

Reception

Critical response

Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes collected 26 critic reviews and identified 77% of them to be positive, with an average rating of 7.19/10. Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average rating of 44 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Ella Kemp from The Playlist praised the performances stating: "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."
Katey Rich of Vanity Fair said: "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." While Peter Debruge of Variety wrote: "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."