Friendship: How Not To Do The Cancer Subplot

I haven’t had a rant about the portrayal of cancer in film for a decent ol’ while now, so…here’s a post where I have a rant about the portrayal of cancer in film. Specifically Andrew Deyoung’s Friendship, which I didn’t find either as clever or comedic as most people are saying it is. Just havin’ my say (etc.).

(Uhh, skip a few paragraphs to get to discussion of the specific film in question. The first bit’s me giving a waffling introduction. No actual waffles available, I’m afraid. That kind of Willy Wonka tech hasn’t advanced that far. Yet)

But I’m not saying cancer can’t be portrayed effectively in a comedic landscape. It can. Take a look at 50/50, for example. While that film’s far from perfect in other respects, it’s also the only film I’ve ever seen that shows the more visceral side effects of the treatment. Apart from the classic cancer head, of course. That’s the one thing most films go for to signal the disease without going much further. But 50/50 doesn’t get dragged into the sentimentality train nearly as much as most films do. But anyway, that’s an example where cancer is the central subject of the film. Can you fit a meaningful cancer storyline into a comedic film where cancer’s more in the background?

Yep, you can. Check out the first two Guardians of the Galaxy films. Sure, they’re superhero films, but they’re definitely injected with more of James Gunn’s signature comedy than your average supe flick. The film gets Peter Quill’s origin story done quite quickly, but it’s effective nonetheless, with Peter’s refusal to hold his mother’s hand as she dies of cancer (the ‘c’ word isn’t explicitly mentioned, but the bald head symbolism does enough to make the illness explicit) leading to him running outside and being abducted by the Revengers. Peter’s mum doesn’t appear in any flashbacks during the rest of the film, but is kept in Peter’s memory through the cassette she gave to him, as well as the new cassette she gifted him before he left hospital, which he finally makes himself open at the end of the film. 

You thought that storyline was over? Nope. Peter meets his father in the next film, and it’s safe to say he’s, um, not a great guy. If you couldn’t tell that from his name, anyway (hint: any guy that happens to be named Ego probably isn’t a cool dude. You don’t need Freud to tell you that). This fact comes to a crushing dramatic reveal when Ego, finally getting some alone time with his son, chooses to eschew a round of baseball or a game of catch, instead going for the jugular: ‘it killed me to put that tumour in her head’. Cut to Peter’s iconic wtf expression as he realises his father is a major a-hole and, well, egotist. It’s a genius revelation that brings the storyline of Peter’s mother full circle.

So. Onto Friendship. Finally. The film centres around an awkward guy’s obsessive relationship with his new neighbour, and how things go south when the relationship crumbles. The awkward guy, Craig, is played by Tim Robinson, a comedian who’s known for Netflix sketch comedy I Want You To Leave. I admittedly have no reference for this show, so wasn’t sure what to expect. And neighbour Austin is played by Paul Rudd, who’s channelling a bit of Brian Fontana mixed in with a more awkward cocktail. Not a Sex Panther-related cocktail, mind you. Ostensibly, the film digs into deeper issues of male bonding, but I don’t think it really does. These two guys make up the central focus of the film, and everyone else is a side character. And you won’t find much more a side character than Craig’s underwhelmed wife Tami, played by a seriously underused Kate Mara. To call her a side character is a compliment in itself.

The films opens on Tami’s facial expression as we find ourselves in a cancer support group, informed that Tami’s been in remission for twelve months and is feeling good. Followed by Craig’s awkward contribution that everything is awesome (no, not the super catchy Lego Movie song) and cool. Followed by an awkward silence from the group. Then onto the next scene. The opening scene is essentially used as a springboard to introduce the audience to Craig’s social awkwardness, with Tami’s condition being tangential to the whole narrative. It’s never made clear what form of cancer she had, and we probably don’t need to know, as Tami isn’t the main character here. But any other mentions of Tami’s former illness are just used to emphasise how much of a jerk/social reject that Craig is. While angrily encouraging Tami to go on an adventure while he leads her through a sewer, Craig declares that ‘We beat cancer’. Or something to that effect (I didn’t take notes with my bright light pen because too many other folks were near me and I didn’t want to cause aggro. ‘Dems the breaks). Again, just an irritating jibe that emphasises Craig as more of a douche than creating any laughs from awkward comedy. Mostly because there isn’t any. For me, anyway. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t have any of the comedic references that Tim Robinson fans will, so maybe this isn’t quite the comedy joint that suits me (I guess the closest British equivalent TV series might be Peep Show, but that’s actually really funny, at least from the few episodes I can watch without cringing and holding a rug in front of my eyes). But its treatment of cancer is woefully crass and in need of revision. I also realise this paragraph is fairly short, but that’s partly because of how sparse and undeveloped the wife character is.🙂

So yeah, those are my two cents on that joint. Ta ta, and farewell.