“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.
And because of that, these indies work almost like an antithesis to a movie like “I Love You, Man” (2009), which suggests that Paul Rudd’s character, Peter, has lost touch with his primal manliness after spending too much time around women his whole life.
Instead of intellectualizing his yearning for a close friend, Peter chooses to embrace the simple-minded pleasures of hanging out with his new rough-around-the-edges pal Sydney (Jason Segel). That he meets Sydney casually, rather than in one of the more formal “man dates” he had planned, implies male connections operate on a more superficial level.
In Hollywood movies like “I Love You, Man,” “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “The Hangover,” the laughs often emerged from raunchiness, while in “Friendship” and other indie bromances, humor is derived from absurdity but comes laced with introspection.
It’s telling that even when addressing men’s desire for nonromantic companionship and intimacy, these neo-bromances resort to cringe-worthy humor. Like their more mainstream counterparts, their approach to fraternal love is not entirely solemn, sometimes poking fun at the prospect.
One early scene in “Friendship” shows Craig spending time with Austin and his larger group of buds. The men in this group appear in touch with their emotions. They are willing to share about their struggles and offer one other meaningful moral support. But this behavior seems foreign to Craig, who ultimately fumbles his chance at being accepted.
Later, after Austin decides to break up their friendship, Craig invites his co-workers — men he barely knows or even likes — to his place for a drink and to show them his new drum set.
His guests mock him and ignore his request that they don’t spoil the latest superhero movie. That behavior reads more like the type of uncommitted and bullying-fueled depictions of platonic male connections onscreen. Here, however, the scene comments on how unfulfilling that interaction is for Craig, who reacts negatively to their cruel teasing by kicking them out.
In tone, the closest cinematic cousin to “Friendship” is Kris Avedisian’s brilliantly offbeat “Donald Cried” (available for rent on major platforms), in which Peter (Jesse Wakeman), a jaded banker, returns to his hometown and reconnects with his socially awkward but winsome high school friend, Donald (played by Avedisian), who has not left the place where they grew up.
The reunion slowly reveals the difficult layers of their challenging past, with old wounds floating to the surface for them to either overcome or to never speak of again.
In “The Climb” (available for rent on major platforms), written by and starring the real-life best friends Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin, two men begrudgingly attempt to rebuild their friendship after one of them has an affair with the other’s girlfriend. When tragedy strikes and destiny brings them back together, they must decide if there’s still something between them worth preserving.
As it wonderfully straddles laugh-out-loud bits with sorrowful pathos, “The Climb” dissects the essence of why these two guys love each other even when it seems they shouldn’t. The way they complement each other’s brokenness only strengthens their bond.
Taking the notion of a toxic friendship to its bleakest possible outcome, the comedian Jerrod Carmichael’s underrated feature directing debut “On the Count of Three” (streaming on Hulu), in which he stars alongside Christopher Abbott, deals with a suicide pact.
Abbott’s bleach-blond Kevin and Carmichael’s Val are on a self-destructive journey tacitly encouraging each other’s worst impulses against those who’ve hurt them. Despite the grim premise, the gallows humor peeks through thanks to the pair’s affecting performances.
This year alone, two more works join the ranks of these flawed bro bonds. In “Eephus” (available for rent on major platforms), the filmmaker Carson Lund shows how the seemingly tenuous camaraderie between a group of men in a recreational baseball league packs profound gravitas.
And then there’s Joel Potrykus’s unsettling “Vulcanizadora” (in theaters), about two men (Potrykus and Joshua Burge) committed to a troubling joint mission in a forest. Their time together begins to drown them in guilt. Playing the same friend characters, the two appeared in Potrykus’s mind-bending 2015 movie “Buzzard” (streaming on Fawesome), which also fit this profile of doomed connections.
Collectively, these bittersweet films (some more bitter than others) serve as a sort of corrective to the movies that previously brushed aside or stripped away the valuable intricacies of male friendships.
That doesn’t mean rowdy, physical comedy is completely out the window, but that now, if these friends get into a scuffle, the root of the conflict will be addressed before they hug it out. By exposing the ugly, sometimes tenderness can come to light.
