After the unexpected death of her closest friend and mentor, New York novelist and writing teacher Iris (Naomi Watts) becomes the caretaker of both his literary legacy and his beloved Great Dane, Apollo. Reluctantly bringing the enormous dog into her tiny Manhattan apartment, Iris develops a surprising kinship with the soulful animal—even though his outsized presence upends both her professional commitments and her daily routine. Together, the unlikely duo begins to move through their shared grief, tentatively embarking on a surprising path toward acceptance and healing.

Adapted from Nunez’s 2018 National Book Award-winning novel, The Friend was already a literary touchstone — an introspective, meditative exploration of grief, companionship, and the sacred bond between humans and animals. On screen, it becomes something even more intimate: a quiet character study of sorrow, survival, and the slow return to light after unthinkable loss. McGehee and Siegel’s translation of Nunez’s voice to cinema is masterful, and they’ve found a perfect partner in Naomi Watts, who gives the most vulnerable, full-bodied performance of her career.

At the centre of The Friend is Iris (Watts), a solitary, intelligent, quietly aching writer whose life is suddenly ruptured by the unexpected suicide of her mentor and dearest friend, Walter (Bill Murray, playing beautifully against type). Their connection, layered with intellectual intimacy, unspoken affection, and decades of shared history, is severed without warning, and what follows is not a dramatic breakdown, but the quiet, slow burn of real grief. To make matters more complex, Iris is left an unusual inheritance: Walter’s hulking six-year-old Great Dane, Apollo. A creature as lost and grief-stricken as Iris herself.

The setup is simple, but The Friend is anything but simplistic. This is a film of layers: emotional, psychological, and philosophical. It speaks softly, but carries immense weight. Iris and Apollo are both in mourning, and the emotional scaffolding of the film is built around the small moments of connection between them: an understanding glance, a shared silence, a new routine that quietly builds meaning.

Watts is extraordinary here. Stripped back, naturalistic, and completely present, she disappears into Iris. There’s no vanity in her performance, only truth. She brings to life the deep internal world of a character grappling with the absence of a person, of purpose, of a future she thought she understood. Her relationship with Apollo is never sentimentalised. Instead, it’s rendered with nuance and grace, and it’s through this connection, with a creature that cannot speak but understands everything, that Iris begins to heal.

The emotional depth of the story is matched by its aesthetic beauty. Cinematographer Giles Nuttgens captures New York in a way rarely seen: not as a glittering metropolis, but as a living, breathing organism that reflects Iris’s interior state. Empty streets, golden-hour apartments, quiet bookstores — it’s a city of shadows and second chances. The score by Jay Wadley and Trevor Gureckis further deepens the emotional texture of the film, haunting and hopeful in equal measure.

And then, of course, there’s Walter. Though his death anchors the story, his presence lingers, both in memory and in ghostly flashes that haunt Iris’s imagination. Bill Murray’s performance is restrained and moving, appearing in fragments of recollection and one breathtaking moment of magical realism that brings Iris face to face with her grief. In the film’s third act, a conversation between Iris and Walter, born from memory, longing, and the writer’s imagination, unfurls with such emotional clarity that it leaves you breathless. It’s not just a scene; it’s a reckoning.

But perhaps the film’s most unexpected star is Bing the Great Dane, who plays Apollo with incredible soul. There’s something deeply human in his eyes, and McGehee and Siegel wisely let his silent presence carry much of the emotional load. The bond that forms between Bing and Watts on screen is nothing short of extraordinary. It’s never cutesy or forced. It’s raw, real, and deeply earned.

The Friend never overreaches. There are no big speeches, no sweeping catharses. Instead, it leans into stillness. It allows for ambiguity, for silence, for all the messy, murky feelings that come with loving and losing. And in doing so, it achieves something rare: emotional honesty. This is not just a story of grief, it’s a story of recovery. Of what it means to be human. Of how even the most broken among us can find companionship, meaning, and even joy again.

While some may expect a tearjerker, The Friend is something more delicate and more lasting. It’s a film that burrows under your skin and makes you think, feel, and reflect long after the credits roll. It’s about how we carry those we’ve lost with us, not just in our memories, but in how we live, how we love, and who we become in their absence.

For dog lovers, writers, quiet souls, and anyone who’s ever experienced the deep ache of missing someone, The Friend will feel like a balm. It’s a quiet revelation, and one of the most emotionally rich films of the year. Bring tissues. But more importantly, bring your heart wide open.

Image: Maslow Entertainment

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Penguin Bloom tells the true story of Sam Bloom (Naomi Watts) a young mother whose world is turned upside down after a near-fatal accident leaves her paralyzed. Sam’s husband, (Andrew Lincoln), her three young boys and her mother (Jacki Weaver), are struggling to adjust to their new situation when an unlikely ally enters their world in the form of an injured baby magpie they name Penguin. The bird’s arrival is a welcome distraction for the Bloom family, eventually making a profound difference in the family’s life.

Based on the true story of Sam Bloom (Naomi Watts), an Australian nurse who suffered a devastating accident that left her paralysed and bound to a wheelchair, Penguin Bloom follows how Sam is ultimately able to heal through the help of her son’s adopted magpie Penguin and the strength that this little bird brings to her family. Director Glendyn Ivin tells a deeply moving family drama through Penguin Bloom, and while it might at first appear to be nothing more than a fluffy story, Ivin instead presents a powerful story of overcoming adversity in the face of scarring trauma.

Australian actress Naomi Watts is able to return to her roots with Penguin Bloom, and she’s incredibly compelling in the role of the real-life Sam Bloom. Suffering in the midst of a life-altering injury, Watts presents the hurt, pain, fear, anxiety, and anger that many people go through when having to deal with such a heavy ordeal. Watts is emotionally raw in the part and is in a very bad way when we first meet her. But slowly, and steadily through the companionship, she finds through orphaned magpie Penguin she is able to rise above her pain and chart a new course for her life.

Watts’ performance as Sam can best be described as authentic. She does an incredible job honouring the true-life Sam and her powerful journey to overcome her disability and the pain that it causes her. She’s incredibly real in the part, and her performance carries the film’s three-act structure and the dramatic depth at its base. Matching Watts in her performance is Andrew Lincoln as Sam’s husband Cameron who is having to deal with the fallout from his wife’s accident, and at times their new lives completely overwhelm him. But he’s always there for his wife, and with the help from their children, and a little spark of joy from Penguin, the Bloom’s are able to move past trauma and find new hope in their lives.

As an audience member, Penguin Bloom is a movie that plays with your emotions on all levels and it definitely not what audiences might first expect it to be. While it is a family drama, I for one was not expecting how heavy the emotions would get in this film. Especially during the first act when Sam is having to come to terms with her new life, and the hardships it brings, along with a shocking moment in the third act that causes plenty of hysteria and hurt for the Bloom family and Penguin. The strength of this narrative is down to both Ivin’s direction and the performances of Watts and Lincoln, and Penguin Bloom is a very moving experience for audiences.

Penguin Bloom is ultimately a story about how one can find a new life for themselves. and that joy often arrives in the most unexpected places, symbolized by the Bloom’s magpie Penguin, who’s a real little rascal. It’s a powerful film that hits you with its unexpected dramatic weight and again proves why Australian cinema is some of the best in the world.

Image: Roadshow Films

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Set in the 14th Century but spoken in a contemporary voice, Ophelia is a dynamic re-imagining of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Ophelia (Daisy Ridley) takes centre stage as Queen Gertrude’s (Naomi Watts) most trusted lady-in-waiting. Beautiful and intelligent, she soon captures the attention of the handsome Prince Hamlet (George MacKay) and a forbidden love blossoms. As war brews, lust and betrayal are tearing Elsinore Castle apart from within and Ophelia must decide between her true love or her own life in order to protect a very dangerous secret.

Adapting any of the works of the great Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon always presents a worthy challenge for any filmmaker, but when that filmmaker reinterprets them from an entirely different perspective, well, then audiences are really in for a surprise. Luckily director Claire McCarthy is up for the challenge here with Ophelia, a bold and dramatic retelling of Hamlet that frames the story from the point-of-view of Hamlet’s one true love, Ophelia, and it’s a brilliant angle to take. Seen from the perspective of a woman, this ancient tale’s narrative of bloodlust and tragedy makes this classic play that much more relevant, and McCarthy does a terrific job probing the psychological complexity that lies at the heart of this story.

For actress Daisy Ridley, the role of Ophelia presents her with plenty of challenge and opportunity and this young performer rises to the occasion. Ridley’s performance here is that of the ingenue mixed in with an earthy, textured quality. Her Ophelia is a young woman who is very close to nature and who brings a calm sense of serenity to the halls of power of Elsinore Castle. But as the madness of power grips the castle, soon Ophelia’s love for her dear Hamlet is tested with the violence of the Prince’s need for vengeance. Ridley really brings to life the humanity and sincerity of Ophelia, and you really feel her desire for life and prosperity. She deals with some very heavy issues here, and her performance as Ophelia is a real step forward in a growing maturity in her career and she absolutely draws the audience’s attention into the film’s complex narrative.

Sharing the screen beside Ridley’s Ophelia is Naomi Watts in a sensational double role as both Queen Gertrude and a mysterious character whose actions have plenty of malice on the story. Watts plays off of Ridley well, and she assumes the decorum and status of the Queen of Denmark with considerable power, and bears a strong presence throughout the film’s events. Here Watts strikes a terrific balance as the Queen as she projects both a regal elegance, but also dangerous competitiveness, as she throws her own jealousies and insecurities onto her handmaidens and this unwanted attention definitely does not fall past Ophelia. This leads to plenty of great dramatic tension between these two characters and the resulting scenes that play out between the two of them certainly keep you on your toes.

Alongside some wonderful performances, McCarthy’s Ophelia is simply a beautiful film to look at. Visually rich and shining at every corner, this film is a piece of art and it is beautifully captured through the lens of cinematographer Denson Baker. Through the presence of natural light and rich hues of colour, McCarthy and Baker craft a film that absolutely holds the attention of the audience and brings them into the operatic drama that is present throughout the film’s narrative. Of all of Ophelia‘s striking visual set pieces, it’s the ball scene inside Elsinore Castle which really captures your attention and it is a stunning combination of art direction, costuming, hair and make-up and cinematography. Alongside its grand visuals, McCarthy also finds innovative ways to illuminate the play’s twists and turns such as the appearance of the Ghost and the duel between Hamlet and Laertes.

Ophelia is an incredibly rich and lavish cinema experience that re-energizes the narrative of Hamlet and focuses in on the incredible talent that is Daisy Ridley. Those who love historical drama with a twist will be in for a real treat with this one.

Image: Madman Films

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