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    In Dark Comedies Like ‘Friendship,’ Bad Bromance Brews

    A spate of recent indie films provide a complicated, sometimes solemn take on male friendship.“Men shouldn’t have friends,” reads the provocative tagline of the uncomfortable new comedy “Friendship” (in theaters), from the writer-director Andrew DeYoung.That tongue-in-cheek statement seems to respond to the deranged lengths Craig (Tim Robinson), a suburban father and husband trapped in a dull routine, will go to feel validated by his much-cooler neighbor, Austin (Paul Rudd).Even as bizarre as the pair’s encounters become, an improbable but genuine loyalty develops between them in the end.But “Pineapple Express” this is not. The last decade has seen several American indie tragicomedies that, like “Friendship,” explore complicated platonic relationships between men with insight that the mainstream brom-coms that were hugely popular in the 2000s weren’t interested in. These new films stir up a kind of bad bromance.Movies such as “The Climb” (2020), “Donald Cried” (2017) and “On the Count of Three” (2022) interrogate toxic masculinity and approach the mechanics of male bonding with searing incisiveness, while still making time for laughs. In these stories, men grapple with regret, forgiveness and their darkest feelings as they relate to their best bros.Kyle Marvin, left, and Michael Angelo Covino in “The Climb.” Zach Kuperstein/Sony Pictures ClassicsWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Friendship’ Review: Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd Hit Maximum Cringe

    Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd star in the kind of comedy you watch from behind your hands.One of the most unforgivable (and unforgettable) sins you can commit in youth, say around the sixth grade, happens when you’re desperate to join a new friend group. You want to be cool. You want to be part of their circle. So when someone cracks a joke, you laugh with everyone, then add your own hilarious rejoinder — and everyone just stares. Some invisible line has been crossed. You took the joke too far, and now it’s dead and, with it, your social life, your reputation and your chances of ever being happy again.This feeling goes a long way toward explaining why “Friendship,” the new cringe-com starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd, is often funny and always distressing. The feature debut of the writer and director Andrew DeYoung definitely shares DNA with “I Think You Should Leave,” Robinson’s hit Netflix comedy series, in which he usually plays a guy who can’t quite make out the social cues everyone else seems to follow without trying. So he’s always doing something bizarre, and it’s funny because it’s uncomfortable.This makes Robinson the perfect, and possibly only, lead for DeYoung’s script. It’s about a man named Craig Waterman who has attained the markers of adulthood — a lovely wife (Tami, played by Kate Mara), a teenage son (Jack Dylan Grazer) who still at least talks to him, gainful employment, a nice-enough house — but is functionally still the sixth grader in that friend circle.Except Craig, being a certain variety of grown American man, doesn’t have friends, per se. He has Tami, who is almost unbelievably nice to him given he’s sort of a putz: obsessed with avoiding Marvel spoilers, loyal to only one brand of clothing that he apparently sources from a restaurant called Ocean View Dining. His co-workers joke around with one another on their smoke breaks, which he watches from his office window, nose all but pressed against the glass. Then, one day, he meets the new neighbor, Austin Carmichael (Rudd), who turns out to be the coolest guy Craig could imagine. Austin has a mustache. He’s the local weatherman. He plays in a band. He buys antique weaponry. He knows just which rules to break to have a good time.So Craig develops a kind of obsession with Austin, not exactly the creepy kind but not exactly uncreepy, either. Hanging out with Austin, Craig can see a different future for himself, one in which he is a rad, manly, sought-after leader who jams out on the drums and impresses everyone around him. If Craig hangs out with Austin, people will want to be his friend, too.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More