{"id":59727,"date":"2025-09-12T15:07:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T15:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/59727\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T15:07:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T15:07:19","slug":"the-movies-that-influenced-the-tim-robinson-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/59727\/","title":{"rendered":"The Movies That Influenced the Tim Robinson Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cFriendship<\/a>\u201d has turned out to be a surprise mini-breakout for A24<\/a>. That the Tim Robinson<\/a>-led film<\/a> has its critical champions and devoted following is to be expected, but it\u2019s surprising that the dark, anxiety-inducing, so-called cringe comedy was able to make an extended theatrical run, before becoming the top-rated film on HBO MAX as it made its streaming debut this past weekend.<\/p>\n

When \u201cFriendship<\/a>\u201d writer\/director Andrew DeYoung<\/a> was a guest on this week\u2019s episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast<\/a>, he admitted he wasn\u2019t prepared for the volume of laughs the film received during its initial festival screenings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I saw it at TIFF,<\/a> I didn\u2019t realize I made this kind of movie,\u201d said DeYoung of the crowd\u2019s laughter. \u201cSeeing it with a crowd, I was like, \u2018I can\u2019t believe this, did I make \u2018Borat 3\u2019 accidentally?’\u201d<\/p>\n

\"'Adulthood'\"<\/a> \"'Glenrothan'\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

While DeYoung has learned credit is due to Robinson\u2019s rabid fanbase and the raucous SXSW and Toronto\u2019s Midnight Madness audiences, he\u2019s also come to realize the film\u2019s humor hits harder than he expected \u2014 that\u2019s in part because he wasn\u2019t trying to make a traditional comedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a huge fan of most comedy movies because I think it lacks something real underneath,\u201d said DeYoung. \u201cI respect a lot of [comedies], I watch, I laugh, and I don\u2019t think about them ever again.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeYoung gravitates more toward more \u201cuncomfortable\u201d comedies, like Scorsese\u2019s \u201cKing of Comedy,\u201d or the work of Swedish director Ruben \u00d6stlund (\u201cTriangle of Sadness,\u201d \u201cForce Majeure\u201d) \u2014 films that come with laughs that, accordingly to DeYoung, \u201chit harder because of the emotion underneath,\u201d because they touch on the nerve of something deeper and \u201creal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"THE\u2018The King of Comedy\u2019\u00a920thCentFox\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

In the case of \u201cFriendship,\u201d DeYoung pokes beneath the surface at issues that political scientist Robert D. Putnam wrote about in his landmark 2000 book, \u201cBowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI went deep into [Putnam\u2019s] work,\u201d said DeYoung. \u201cHe was pointing at the complete lack of community in [modern] American life that I think we all feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

That communal void is felt by Craig Waterman (Robinson) following the termination of his brief friendship with Austin (Paul Rudd), the cool new neighbor who, in the first act, magically injects Craig\u2019s life with a male friend group, outdoor adventures, jam sessions, and evening hangs. After Austin abruptly ends their friendship, Craig is desperate to get back what he lost and to refill that void, triggering increasingly unhinged behavior that culminates in him losing his job, family, and freedom.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the stuff of a standard American comedy, but neither is DeYoung\u2019s model of what a comedy should be. While on the\u00a0podcast,<\/a>\u00a0the \u201cFriendship\u201d writer\/director discussed the eye-opening moment when he was a teenager and saw Chris Smith\u2019s \u201cAmerican Movie,\u201d a documentary about a Wisconsin filmmaker trying to complete his low-budget horror film amid a series of setbacks and personal problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s a doc, but to me [\u2018American Movie\u2019] is what comedy should be, because it\u2019s desperate people trying their damnedest to make something of themselves, \u201d said DeYoung. \u201cAnd the camera ideally should be in service of those real emotions. I feel this in TV \u2014 because I work in TV a lot \u2014 when things are so bright, I just all of a sudden am like, \u2018All these characters are in a Target.\u2019 It takes away from the emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeYoung added, \u201cIt\u2019s also [that] we\u2019re inundated with images now, especially things that look technically correct, but are so goddamn boring. So, I\u2019m excited to push it even further and play with the image and make it feel \u2018real,\u2019 or dark as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeYoung and cinematographer Andy Rydzewski plunge Craig into increasing literal darkness, so much so, as the film progresses that it stylistically adopts aspects of the horror genre.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as [Craig and Austin\u2019s] breakup happens, [the film] starts to enter that [darkness] because it\u2019s that anxiety of losing somebody, that you want to be with, that I think feels like a horror movie to most of us, especially if they met a certain amount of your needs that you don\u2019t know how to meet yourself,\u201d said DeYoung. \u201cThat\u2019s why ideally we laugh and get rid of the tension, but it\u2019s those two feelings at the same time [that] is really rewarding to me. It\u2019s fertile ground for narrative to have both places \u2014 both, I\u2019m getting laughs, but I\u2019m also in this tense, \u2018I\u2019m not sure [what] is going to happen\u2019 [feeling].\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s here DeYoung points to Paul Thomas Anderson<\/a>, a director he\u2019s studied intensely, and whose 2012 Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix-led \u201cThe Master<\/a>\u201d had a profound influence on him, in part because of Anderson\u2019s ability to craft scenes that hold simultaneous and contradictory emotions.<\/p>\n

\"THE\u2018The Master\u2019\u00a9Weinstein Company\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

Said DeYoung of Anderson, \u201cThere\u2019s something rewarding about him not shoving you, the viewer, into kind of expectation, or a certain feeling. He\u2019s so good about providing a few feelings that you get to choose from, and to me, I find that he respects the audience so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeYoung also argues PTA\u2019s films are far funnier than people give them credit \u2014 something \u201cFriendship\u201d fans have helped him accept about his own film.<\/p>\n

To hear Andrew DeYoung<\/a>\u2018s full interview, subscribe to the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast<\/a> on\u00a0Apple<\/a>,\u00a0Spotify<\/a>, or your favorite podcast platform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cFriendship\u201d has turned out to be a surprise mini-breakout for A24. That the Tim Robinson-led film has its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[745,42866,18,117,597,42867,3695,19,17,327,1341],"class_list":{"0":"post-59727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-a24","9":"tag-andrew-deyoung","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-film","13":"tag-filmmaker-toolkit-podcast","14":"tag-friendship","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-movies","18":"tag-paul-thomas-anderson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}