Review | Our Friend movie review: cancer drama starring Dakota Johnson, Jason Segel highlights importance of friendship
- The story jumps back and forth in time as it chronicles the diagnosis, treatment and death of a woman, and the friend both she and her husband come to rely on
- Our Friend is unabashedly earnest, and Jason Segel is perfect as the affable loser who finds purpose in helping the family through their darkest hour
3.5/5 stars
Cancer is one of those tragic life experiences most of us would share only with our closest family members, but Our Friend follows an outsider into this sanctuary of pain and fear, only for him to become a family’s saving grace.
Adapted from Matthew Teague’s award-winning Esquire magazine article “The Friend”, Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s film chronicles the diagnosis, treatment and ultimately the death of Teague’s wife, Nicole (Dakota Johnson), and the impact it has on the couple and their two young daughters.
Rather than detail the struggle of a brave woman fighting for her life, however, Teague (Casey Affleck) focuses on their long-time friend Dane (Jason Segel), who put his own life on hold to help them through this darkest hour.
Our Friend employs a fractured timeline, beginning with the couple breaking it to their daughters that Mummy isn’t going to get better, before jumping back 13 years to the night Matt first met his wife’s old college pal. Dane is unmotivated, unfocused and unlucky in love, while Matt is ambitious and driven, almost to the point of neglecting his family.
Nevertheless, they become fast friends, and after Nicole’s diagnosis, Matt quickly realises he is out of his depth and incapable of running his own household. Dane offers to move in for a couple of weeks to help, and never leaves.