In the new film by Bill Murray, “The Friend”, currently in theaters and based on the beautifully soft-amer novel by Sigrid Nunez, he plays Walter, writer and professor who is the best friend with Iris, played by Naomi Watts. Thanks to an overwhelming course of events, Iris, who lives in a modest apartment in Manhattan, ends up having to accept the Danes of Walter. Not exactly ideal for her or for the dog, and not exactly thought out of Walter.
Full of mind and charismatic but also egocentric and responsible for real damage, Walter shares a lot in common with numerous end -of -care roles in Murray. I often think of the dramatic parts in which he has specialized since the late 90s (consider melancholy men of a certain age in “Rushmore”, “Lost in Translation”, “On the Rocks”, “St. Vincent” and so on) as being similar to versions of the alternative world of the comedy characters that made him a star. Because Peter Venkman in “Ghostbusters” or Phil Connors in “Groundhog Day”, to choose only two of his most memorable comic creations, could also be selfish and nasty but, in the end, came out. This is not the case with Walter and his fellows. It is as if the characters of the last days of Murray suffer from karmic reimbursement to his previous ones.
A similar balancing act – between charm and callous, buoyancy and bad moods – has also surfaced in Murray’s out -screen life. Yes, he is an avatar globetrotter of a joyful surprise, known for his party and his high jinks, but the directors and the co-stars like Geena Davis, Lucy Liu, Richard Dreyfuss and Harold Ramis said that Murray was, to say it very slowly, not easy to work. And in 2022, a staff member working on the film “Being Mortal” said that Murray, which was 74 years old, behaved inappropriately with her on the set. She said he rides her and kissed her through masks, which they wore in the COVID-19 protocols. The production was closed and finally they reached a regulation.
Given all of this, Murray, enigmatic and mercurial, is difficult to understand. But a rainy day at the end of March, in a hotel in downtown Manhattan, I was lucky to try.
