Dakota Johnson and Casey Affleck play a couple dealing with cancer with help from a friend in a meandering fact-based drama
There’s a telling moment in the third act of The Friend, a drama of terminal illness, where Dakota Johnson’s character, nearing the end of her life, looks in the mirror and tells her husband, played by Casey Affleck, that she looks ugly. She bemoans the fact that people can no longer look at her and he provides reassurance, telling her she looks as beautiful as ever. It’s a sweet scene on paper but in the Blackfish director Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s fact-based yet sanitised film, it doesn’t ring true. Johnson, at her movie worst, is still supernaturally beautiful with clear skin and a cute pixie cut and the moment showcases one of the film’s biggest failings: an unwillingness to show just how horrifying cancer can be.
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