A poignantly affecting watch that mostly earns its emotional payoff, delivering gentle laughs along the way. It’ll have them howling in the aisles at the next dog-friendly screening.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 26, 2025

The film carries itself like a bright and mischievous character study in the style of Nicole Holofcener, but is ultimately just a dog weepie with airs.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 25, 2025

It’s a little stiff, a little too earnest and tasteful, that bit too conscious of its own pedigree poise.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 25, 2025

This is comfort cinema dealing with an uncomfortable subject. It gets the messiness of life right and lives up to its line that "People feel the way they feel." Dogs too.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 25, 2025

Like Apollo, the film is often messy and uncertain of itself, but considerably well-behaved and with an adorable heart at its centre.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 25, 2025

This melancholy comedy starring Naomi Watts, about a woman who inherits a Great Dane following a friend's suicide, is a heart-wrenching meditation on grief.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 25, 2025

Even if you’re not into the ‘non-action’ genre, the film’s worth it for the dog. There is a dog by the way, did I say?

| Apr 24, 2025

The dog is really the heart of the film, and Naomi Watts and Apollo blend into an acting team.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 24, 2025

Watts and Murray, both guilty of being underutilised to their full potential in recent years, immerse themselves into characters with rich interiors who are conversing across the afterlife.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 24, 2025

Bing could hardly be more charming as the dog whose presence causes her to confront what’s missing in her own life. How does the closing number go? “A wondrous toy just made for a girl and boy”. I’ll buy that.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 23, 2025

[The dog] has a very expressive face and appears to be acting alongside his human co-stars. His sadness offsets anyone else’s on screen, causing audiences to empathize with him, perhaps even more than the human bereaved.

| Apr 22, 2025

t’s not a spectacular breakout but rather an intelligently meticulous mix of low-key, detailed, character-based storytelling, and perfect casting.

| Apr 17, 2025

A delightful, leisurely, and painful journey, full of introspection and valuable lessons. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 17, 2025

Any Bill Murray movie is a good movie because Bill Murray is Bill Murray.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 16, 2025

A love letter to the canine community. Also, one of the warmest depictions of New York in recent memory.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 15, 2025

Most of The Friend... unfolds as a light, occasionally frustrating sitcom.

| Apr 14, 2025

Rather than trying haphazardly to recalibrate a familiar recipe, the filmmakers execute it with uncommon grace and sensitivity.

| Apr 14, 2025

All the emotions in The Friend are only skin deep.

| Original Score: C | Apr 12, 2025

“Great Danes are the king of dogs,” declares a character in THE FRIEND. If you believe that, you may be engaged by this story of a woman bequeathed a hulking dog named Apollo. Otherwise, in spite of a game performance by Naomi Watts, it is a chaotic mess.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 11, 2025

aka Karen: The Movie

| Original Score: C-minus | Apr 11, 2025