June 5th, 2025

Most comedy stars begin on television. SNL is an easy place to grab talent from after all, people like Will Ferrel, Tina Fey, Chevy Chase, and Eddie Murphy all got their starts there. And now we have a different kind of star gracing the silver screen. Tim Robinson has become a cult comedy hit over the past half decade, between his shows Detroiters and I Think You Should Leave he’s gathered a similar following that is reminiscient of the Adult Swim comedies of the mid to late aughts, something like Tim & Eric (Tim Heidecker is a regular collaborator on I Think You Should Leave) that has niche appeal due to its specific kind of humor.

So now Robinson has joined forces with one time television director Andrew DeYoung on the latter’s new film Friendship, about an interminable man making, and then losing a friend in middle age. It’s the kind of job that Robinson, is well suited for, being able to give his strange and hilarious line readings to a quaint suburbia.

The film follows Craig (Robinson) as he becomes friends with his new neighbor Austin (Paul Rudd) before behaving so poorly that Austin decides to break the friendship off. It’s reminiscent of a Seinfeld episode where Jerry tries to break off his relationship with his childhood friend Joel. But instead of seeing it from the side that is breaking things off, we see it from the viewpoint of the one being dumped, and the movie makes it clear, Craig has little to no redeeming qualities. Even his wife, portrayed by Kate Mara giving possibly the best dramatic performance of her career, becomes increasingly exasperated with him.

As Craig tries to reckon with being friendship dumped, his behavior becomes increasingly unpredictable. He tries to mimic Austin and use his power at work to make friends with him. He picks up smoking so as to get into banter with his coworkers outside. In the funniest sequence of the film, he buys some drugs from a cell phone store employee where it’s revealed that Craig is probably the shallowest, least interesting person that has ever existed.

The jokes all land, and Robinson’s performance has a lot to do with that. The way he delivers punchlines and responses is the perfect tone for a man who designs apps so that they are more addictive. So while he is a reprehensible human being, you feel a little bad for him because it just seems like maybe he’s not smart enough to really be blamed for his poor decision making.

The only real concern is that this format is very different from the context we’re used to seeing Robinson in. I Think You Should Leave is a sketch show, and Detroiters is a 20 minute sitcom. This is one hundred minutes of Robinson at his cringiest, least socially adept performance by far. So while the jokes all land, and he, Mara, and Rudd are all locked into what the film is asking of them, by an hour in you do start to feel exhausted by the awkwardness of it all. It’s an interesting, smart, and funny movie, but I wouldn’t blame anyone who said they couldn’t finish it because of the level of anxiety they experienced while seeing Craig live out his life. Not unlike Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems, when given a decision to make, Craig invariably will make the wrong one. And the movie lacks the propulsion to help guid you through it.

I do hope to see more of Tim Robinson, but in the meantime I’ll probably stick to 20 minutes at a time before returning to Friendship.

3.5/5