Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd lean into cringe comedy of ‘Friendship’

Tim Robinson, who has become a cult comedic star with his show “I Think You Should Leave,” possesses the hulking, humorously awkward physicality of a socially inappropriate goofball who’s just big enough to be dangerous.

In “Friendship,” his breakout feature turn, Robinson plays Craig Waterman, a good-natured lummox living in a dreary Nowheresville called Clovis, USA — which could easily be a stand-in for suburban Detroit, where Robinson grew up. Craig works for a generic tech company called Universal Digital Innovations, which creates addictive apps for corporations and political candidates.

Craig lives in his own hyper-screened, self-satisfied world, even when he’s in the cramped split-level house he shares with Tami (Kate Mara), a recent cancer survivor who runs a flower-arranging business out of their dining room, and their teenage son Stevie (Jack Dylan Grazer). While Tami worries about her disease recurring, Craig blithely shares during a cancer support group meeting that “everything is awesome.”

In other words, Craig exists in a goldfish bowl brimming with blissful oblivion: That’s not privilege or entitlement he’s swimming in, it’s just water. But Craig’s complacency will get a considerable sloshing when he meets Austin (Paul Rudd), who has just moved in down the street.

Taking a page from the observational humor of the late Lynn Shelton, with nods toward the Apatovian School of Modern Male Anxiety and the cringe comedy of Larry David, “Friendship” chronicles the morphology of a middle-aged man crush, from its besotted onset of beers, boxing and a brotastic version of “My Boo” to its ignominious flameout.

There’s a thin line between the campy antics of “I Love You, Man” and the far darker malignancy at the heart of “The Cable Guy”: “Friendship” lives in that liminal space, mining its queasiest, quirkiest nuances for absurdist laughs and less comfortable squirms.

Written and directed by Andrew DeYoung, making his feature debut, “Friendship” possesses the ungainly pacing and structure of one of Robinson’s sketches extended beyond its comfort level.

Rudd brings his reliable commit-to-the-bit resolve to a role for which he’s supremely well-suited. DeYoung has enlisted an able supporting cast to provide services as foils for Craig’s more bizarre behavioral doglegs.

But “Friendship” is clearly intended as a showcase for Robinson, whose manic focus and imposing stature — made all the more hegemonic by an enormous parka — lend him an air of lumbering, untethered menace: This dad bod has been weaponized. His everyman with an edge keeps the audience continually guessing. Is Craig creepy or just refreshingly unfiltered? Are we rooting for him or mentally taking out a restraining order? Is this a message from the skeptical outer reaches of the manosphere? Or a cry for help from its loneliest inner craw?

“Friendship” is primarily a movie for Robinson’s hardcore fans, but, for the Tim-curious, it serves as an amusing — if haphazard and uneven — introduction to his distinctive sensibility.

This is an excerpt from a Washington Post story.