Documentaries, features and cartoons: friendships Shine in This Year’s Awards Contenders
Friendship often plays a quiet second fiddle to romance in movies, but this awards season, it’s stepping into the spotlight. Projects like Netflix’s Will & Harper and Nickel Boys, alongside Challengers, A Real Pain, and Memoir of a Snail, bring platonic bonds into sharp focus, proving they’re just as compelling — and as transformative — as romantic ones.
Take Will & Harper, for instance. This Netflix documentary chronicles Will Ferrell’s cross-country journey with Harper Steele as she navigates her new life after transitioning. Director Josh Greenbaum reveals how their friendship began in 1995 during their time at Saturday Night Live. Their bond only grew stronger over the years, even after the two stopped working together. Shortly after the pandemic lockdown, Steele wrote to friends, sharing that, in her sixties, she had finally found the courage to live as the woman she had always felt herself to be. Ferrell offered his unwavering support, but he had so many questions that the idea of a road trip was born. The result was a coast-to-coast journey by car, an ode to pure friendship filled with long conversations, memories, anecdotes, fears, quiet moments, countless laughs, and a few tears. It already won the biggest prize at the Critics Choice Association Documentary celebration.
Other films this season also delve into the emotional depths of friendship. In Nickel Boys, Elwood and Turner form a life-saving alliance in a 1960s reform school. “For men to have someone who can challenge and respect you is rare,” says director RaMell Ross. Their friendship becomes a survival tool and a study in non-violent confrontation — a lesson in emotional resilience.
Similarly, Challengers explores the complicated ties between childhood friends and tennis stars Patrick and Art, whose bond is tested by competition and a love triangle. For screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, their connection is a callback to classics like The Big Chill. “You feel like you’ve known these guys for 15 years,” he says, emphasizing the rich narrative potential of deep-seated friendships.
In A Real Pain, cousins David and Benji embark on a pilgrimage to Poland to visit their late grandmother’s former home, uncovering a layer of their bond that goes beyond family. Producer Ali Herting explains that their dynamic “mirrors” elements of themselves, offering a nuanced look at how friendship can provide a foil to personal growth and understanding.
Female friendships also shine this season, particularly in Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, Golden Lion at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, and Adam Elliot’s stop-motion Memoir of a Snail. The first one follows two old friends, played by Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, as they confront the difficult decision of euthanasia. Snail, the relationship between Grace, a traumatized young woman, and Pinky, an older mentor brimming with joy, offers redemption and self-discovery. “We all desperately need friends,” Elliot reflects with the Los Angeles Times. “Sometimes, they teach us how to love ourselves.”
Source: LA Times
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Friendship often plays a quiet second fiddle to romance in movies, but this awards season, it’s stepping into the spotlight. Projects like Netflix’s Will & Harper and Nickel Boys, alongside Challengers, A Real Pain, and Memoir of a Snail, bring platonic bonds into sharp focus, proving they’re just as compelling — and as transformative — as romantic ones.
Take Will & Harper, for instance. This Netflix documentary chronicles Will Ferrell’s cross-country journey with Harper Steele as she navigates her new life after transitioning. Director Josh Greenbaum reveals how their friendship began in 1995 during their time at Saturday Night Live. Their bond only grew stronger over the years, even after the two stopped working together. Shortly after the pandemic lockdown, Steele wrote to friends, sharing that, in her sixties, she had finally found the courage to live as the woman she had always felt herself to be. Ferrell offered his unwavering support, but he had so many questions that the idea of a road trip was born. The result was a coast-to-coast journey by car, an ode to pure friendship filled with long conversations, memories, anecdotes, fears, quiet moments, countless laughs, and a few tears. It already won the biggest prize at the Critics Choice Association Documentary celebration.
Other films this season also delve into the emotional depths of friendship. In Nickel Boys, Elwood and Turner form a life-saving alliance in a 1960s reform school. “For men to have someone who can challenge and respect you is rare,” says director RaMell Ross. Their friendship becomes a survival tool and a study in non-violent confrontation — a lesson in emotional resilience.
Similarly, Challengers explores the complicated ties between childhood friends and tennis stars Patrick and Art, whose bond is tested by competition and a love triangle. For screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, their connection is a callback to classics like The Big Chill. “You feel like you’ve known these guys for 15 years,” he says, emphasizing the rich narrative potential of deep-seated friendships.
In A Real Pain, cousins David and Benji embark on a pilgrimage to Poland to visit their late grandmother’s former home, uncovering a layer of their bond that goes beyond family. Producer Ali Herting explains that their dynamic “mirrors” elements of themselves, offering a nuanced look at how friendship can provide a foil to personal growth and understanding.
Female friendships also shine this season, particularly in Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, Golden Lion at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, and Adam Elliot’s stop-motion Memoir of a Snail. The first one follows two old friends, played by Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, as they confront the difficult decision of euthanasia. Snail, the relationship between Grace, a traumatized young woman, and Pinky, an older mentor brimming with joy, offers redemption and self-discovery. “We all desperately need friends,” Elliot reflects with the Los Angeles Times. “Sometimes, they teach us how to love ourselves.”
Source: LA Times
