Review: ‘The Grab’ (2024), starring Nate Halverson, Emma Schwartz and Mallory Newman

July 20, 2024

by Carla Hay

Nate Halverson, Emma Schwartz and Mallory Newman in “The Grab” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

“The Grab” (2024)

Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Some language in Nyanja and Bemba with subtitles

Culture Representation: The documentary “The Grab” features a predominantly white group of people (with some Africans and Asians) discussing the international competition to control the world’s food and water.

Culture Clash: Certain countries have been aggressively buying up farm land and food companies in other countries as a way to get world domination. 

Culture Audience: “The Grab” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching documentaries that are indications of where geopolitics will be headed.

Mallory Newman and Nate Halverson in “The Grab” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

“The Grab” is a riveting documentary that chronicles a searing investigation of geopolitics. It’s a vital look at how international competition to control food and water should be taken as seriously as the competition to control weapons of mass destruction. In many ways, “The Grab” could make a case that this control of food and water is much more dangerous than control of weapons of mass destruction because of the implications of which nations would have the most power if the world experiences a shortage of food and water.

Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, “The Grab” had its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. “The Grab” is the last documentary released from Participant Media, the production company that was founded in 2004 and shuttered in 2024. Participant Media had several fiction and non-fiction movies that were Oscar nominees and Oscar winners. Participant Media’s Oscar-winning documentaries included 2006’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” 2009’s “The Cove” and 2016’s “Citizenfour.”

“The Grab” follows an investigation by three journalists from the Center for Investigative
Reporting (a non-profit media outlet based in the San Francisco Bay Area), as they expose the often-covert international competition to control food and water. This journalist trio is led by Nate Halverson, who began the investigation and later recruited Emma Schwartz and Mallory Newman to help.

Halverson is shown doing the majority of the interviews (in person or by videoconferencing), while Schwartz and Newman do a great deal of the research. His journalist style is persistent without being too pushy. Newman is also assertive and has more experience than the quieter Schwartz. All three journalists show compassion and empathy for the average people who often are used as pawns in the various countries’ powerful political moves.

In the documentary, Halverson says the original question that he and other people wanted the answer to was: “Is another country making moves to control America’s food supply?” Halverson and his Center for Investigative Reporting colleagues went down a rabbit of information and soon found out that this issue was much more widespread and deeper than just controlling America’s food supply. In an early scene in “The Grab,” Halverson comments, “This project has kept me up at night more than any of my other investigation reporting projects combined.”

During the investigation, Halverson and his colleagues came into possession of several classified/confidential documents that were leaked to them by unnamed whistleblowers. Over 10,000 of these documents (which Halverson calls “The Trove”) are internal communications from Frontier Resources Group, founded by former mercenary Erik Prince. also founded Blackwater U.S.A., a mercenary group that he sold to go into the resource acquisition business.

The investigation named Frontier Resources Group as one of the biggest companies that profits from selling American farm land and U.S.-based food companies to foreign countries. Russia, China, and Saudia Arabia are named as the three of the countries that have been the most aggressive in taking ownership of land and companies that are rich in food and water over the past several years—not just in the United States but in many other parts of the world.

“The Grab” interviews several experts who have been studying or have firsthand knowledge of these geopolitical moves. “Food is a very obvious and central way to wield power,” says Molly Jahn, professor of agronomy and Laboratory of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Jahn is also program manager in the Defense Sciences Office at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Rod Schoonover, a former U.S. senior intelligence officer of the National Intelligence Council, comments on the possibility of World War III happening: “That doesn’t sound improbable to me.” Even if World War III doesn’t happen, the increasing number of natural disasters happening all over the world, in addition to the world’s population getting larger, have made it inevitable that there will be more competition for food and water. Access to affordable food and water can be used as ways to control populations of people.

“The Grab” shows several examples of these gradual takeovers and how an alarming number of people who work for these companies have no idea that these acquisitions are intended to for the foreign countries to amass power and control of the world. That’s because these takeovers are often purchased by mysterious companies (which are often shell companies listed as limited liability corporations, or LLCs) that have offshore accounts that are difficult to trace.

In 2013, the Chinese government (under the name WH Group Ltd.) acquired the American company Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer. This acquisition is named in “The Grab” as an example of the hide-and-seek deals where certain information is deliberately withheld from the public. In 2013, C. Larry Pope (Smithfield’s then-CEO) testified to the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry that even though the Chinese government purchased Smithfield, the company would continue to do the same business as usual. Pope retired from Smithfield at the end of 2015.

However, Halverson came into possession of an internal WH Group Ltd. a document book manual detailing the financials of the Smithfield deal and how WH Group plans to make sweeping changes at Smithfield. The manual explicitly says that the information in the manual cannot be distributed in the United States. In “The Grab,” Halverson has a meeting with former Smithfield CEO Pope to show him these documents. Pope is astonished. Pope’s reaction is either sincere, or he’s a very good actor.

In “The Grab,” Halverson mentions that Saudi Arabia is running out of water to fuel its wheat export business. As a result of this water shortage, Saudi Arabia has been buying U.S. farm properties that have enough water to export to Saudi Arabia and can make enough hay to export to Saudi Arabia to feed the cows in Saudi Arabia. The costs of all this exporting to Saudi Arabia are outweighed by the profits in the areas that benefit from this exporting.

“The Grab” travels to La Paz County, Arizona, where an unnamed Saudia Arabian company has taken over one of the largest farm properties in La Paz County. “The Grab” has interviews with La Paz County residents John Weisser and Wayne Wade, who both report that their wells have run dry after this takeover. Weisser says, “There’s not enough rain to replenish it.” Wade comments on the water shortage in his well: “Pretty soon, there won’t be anything to take.”

Also interviewed is Holly Irwin, Arizona County Supervisor for La Paz County, who is shocked when she sees proof that her county’s residents are experiencing a water shortage in their wells that are apparently being depleted by the Saudi Arabian company. But there’s nothing she can do about it because it’s legal. That’s because Arizona is largely unregulated when it comes to foreign countries taking over Arizona-based businesses.

Africa is another place where the foreign takovers of farm land is thriving. It’s explained in “The Grab” that African farmers are especially vulnerable because they often don’t have deeds to the property that has been in their families for generations. Ethan Cousin, a former executive director of the World Food Programme, says about foreign countries’ takeover of land in Africa: “You can go around the continent and find different groups that prey on deprivation.”

One of the most compelling parts of the documentary is how it shows the civil rights work of attorney Brigadier Siachitema of the non-profit Southern Africa Litigation Centre. Siachitema represents several African farmers in land ownership cases where the farmers otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford attorneys. Felix Tomato and Febby Kalunga are among the farmers in Zambia who are interviewed by Halverson, who also interviews Siachitema.

They talk about white farmers who are funded by mysterious LLCs (many of which are traced back to China) that are displacing African farmers from their land. It’s another form of colonization. But compared to African farmers in previous centuries, today’s African farmers have more legal resources to fight back against these takeovers. It’s an uphill battle for many, but media coverage has made it possible for more people to find out about this problem.

That media coverage was apparently enough of a threat to get journalists Halverson, Schwartz, Newman and “The Grab” filmmaking crew detained at the airport in Serenje, Zambia, during a 2021 trip filmed for this documentary. In the detention room, the journalists see their names on a listed posted on the wall. Ultimately, this group was told to leave the airport because they were told that they were a “national security threat.”

Halverson says in the documentary that Russia is a country that is benefiting from climate change because of the way that Russia is hoarding resources in case of massive natural disasters. Victor Linnik, president of Miratorg (Russia’s leading meat-producer and supplier) says in the documentary that Miratorg recruits American cowboys to teach Russians how to be better farmers and ranchers. Todd Lewis, an American who used to be a manager for Miratorg, says in the documentary that he was hired in about 30 minutes during a phone interview.

Linnick says that food will become more powerful than weapons for world domination: “In the future, for Russia, the driver will be agriculture. We want to feed the world.” It’s mentioned in “The Grab” that Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine (which is rich in farm land) is part of this strategic plan. Halverson comments on Miratorg’s recruitment of American cowboys: “This was a decision that came from [Russian president Vladimir] Putin.”

Other people interviewed in “The Grab” are former CIA officer Robert Mitchell; Maria Otero, former undersecretary of the U.S.; Lee Gunn, former naval inspector general of the U.S. Navy; Aaron Salzberg, director of the Water Institute; former mercenaries John Gartner (founder of OAM International) and Simon Mann (founder of Executive Outcomes); former private military contractor Sean McFate; Robert Young Pelton, author of “The World’s Most Dangerous Places”; Hongzhou Zhang, author of “Securing the Rice Bowl: China and Global Food Security”; Andriy Senchenko, former Ukraine deputy chef of staff; and Edward Hargroves, co-founder of Goldcrest Farm Trust Advisors, which sells water to United Arab Emirates.

“The Grab” tackles these complex issues and makes them easy to understand for the average person who might not be knowledgeable about international politics. The sheer scope of the information uncovered could easily be put into documentary series. But as a documentary feature film, “The Grab” doesn’t get too cluttered and skillfully focuses on certain compelling examples. By also showing the behind-the-scenes work of the investigative journalists who took many risks to bring this information to the world, “The Grab” doesn’t lose sight of the intensity of the work and the sacrifices that are made when journalists expose unsettling truths that people need to know and will affect us all.

Magnolia Pictures released “The Grab” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on June 14, 2024.

Review: ‘I.S.S.,’ starring Ariana DeBose, Chris Messina, John Gallagher Jr., Masha Mashkova, Costa Ronin and Pilou Asbæk

January 21, 2024

by Carla Hay

Ariana DeBose in “I.S.S.” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)

“I.S.S.”

Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Some language in Russian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in outer space, the sci-fi drama film “I.S.S.” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one multiracial person) portraying astronauts from the United States and Russia.

Culture Clash: While on the International Space Station in outer space, three American astronauts and three Russian astronauts find out that an apocalyptic war is happening on Earth between the United States and Russia. 

Culture Audience: “I.S.S.” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Ariana DeBose and sci-fi thrillers about astronauts dealing with a crisis in outer space.

Masha Mashkova, John Gallagher Jr. and Costa Ronin in “I.S.S.” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)

With a low budget and a simple concept, “I.S.S.” has no aspirations to be a classic sci-fi thriller. After a slow start, “I.S.S.” gets more interesting when it’s about personal and national loyalty dilemmas among Russian and American astronauts stuck on a ship in outer space during an unexpected war between their respective nations. Because this is a science-fiction movie, some suspension of disbelief is required. There’s enough tension to keep viewers interested in seeing what will happen next, although the movie could have had a much stronger ending.

Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite and written by Nick Shafir, “I.S.S.” had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Festival. “I.S.S.” is the feature-film debut for screenwriter Shafir, whose approach to this subject matter is very easy to understand but might be too trite for some viewers. The movie’s entire story takes place in outer space but was actually filmed in North Carolina. The year that the story takes place is not mentioned.

The title “I.S.S.” is an acronym for International Space Station. As explained in captions during the movie’s introduction: “The International Space Station (ISS) served as a symbol of the United States and Russian collaboration after the Cold War. The ISS is primarily used as a research facility, where the crew makes advancements in medicine, technology and space exploration. Today, both American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts are living on board the ISS.”

There are only six people in the movie’s entire cast of characters, who are evenly split among Americans and Russians. The Americans are commander Gordon Barrett (played by Chris Messina), emotionally reserved Kira Foster (played by Ariana DeBose) and talkative Christian Campbell (played by John Gallagher Jr.), who is a divorced father with two underage daughters. The Russians are efficient Alexey Pulov (played by Pilou Asbæk), his emotionally aloof brother Nicholai Pulov (played by Costa Ronin) and fun-loving Weronika Vetrov (played by Masha Mashkova), who sometimes goes by the nickname Nika.

Here’s where some suspension of disbelief is necessary for this movie: The first thing that some viewers might ask themselves is: “Why would Russia and the United States only have three astronauts each for such an important ISS mission?” The answer: “Because ‘I.S.S.’ is a low-budget movie.” The movie depicts all six of these space travelers as being confined to a certain part of the station, which is intended to make the movie’s interior settings look claustrophobic.

Kira is the story’s main protagonist. Kira and Alexey are both biological engineers working on a “top secret” project for their respective countries. They both share a workspace. Kira uses mice for her lab experiments. Observant viewers will notice how these mice are parallel symbols of what eventually happens to the humans in the story.

Near the beginning of the movie, Kira and Christian are by themselves, until the other four space travelers join them. Gordon introduces Alexey, Nicholai and Weronika to his colleagues. Everyone is friendly and in good spirits. The Russians begin playing the Scorpions’ 1990 hit song “Wind of Change” and begin singing along.

Alexey mentions how much an anthem the song is for Russians who were affected by the Cold War ending. However, all six of the space travelers agree that ISS is not the place where they want to talk about politics. All of this camaraderie and good cheer do not last when these ISS explorers find out something terrible: While looking down on Earth, they see large glowing spots, indicating that nuclear weapons have been detonated.

Soon after that, the ship loses all communication with Earth, except for some text messages that Gordon first sees on a computer screen in the station: “The ISS has been deemed a priority foothold. All U.S. citizens are to abort all order and experiments. You new objective is to take control of the ISS.” (This information was already revealed in the movie’s trailer.)

After some initial confusion, the Americans deduce that Russia must have attacked the United States, and an apocalyptic war is happening on Earth. Do the Russians on board the ship know this information? And will the Americans stay loyal to their Russian comrades on the ship, or will the Americans follow U.S. government orders and bring the apparent war inside the ship?

The answers to these questions are really what hold “I.S.S.” together, because most of the characters in the movie do not enough character development for viewers to feel like they really know these characters by the end of the movie. Very little is told the personal lives of these ISS travelers. The Russians in the movie have no backstories at all.

In a candid conversation with Gordon, Kira tells him the reason why she became a biological engineer. She says it’s because when she was a child, her terminally ill father died because he was on a waiting list for an organ transplant. Kira comments, “I made it my goal to find an easier way to manufacture what people needed.”

Kira also tells Gordon that she’s a lesbian or queer woman who wants to remain single and focused on work for now, because her ex-fiancée cheated on her and Kira is not ready to get in another love relationship. Later, it’s revealed that Gordon and Weronika have been having a flirtation or casual fling, which has no major bearing on the movie’s plot. As for Alexey and Nicholai, “I.S.S.” missed an opportunity to tell an interesting story about these two family members who are working together.

“I.S.S.” skimps on the details about what the personal stakes are for the people on the ISS to get back home safely to loved ones. However, the movie does reveal certain other information about why it’s very urgent for the ISS inhabitants to get back to Earth, against the odds and at great risk during the destruction that is happening on Earth. The question then becomes: “Who out of these six people will survive when they inevitably turn against each other?”

“I.S.S.” has competent acting for a story that occasionally stumbles with some of the science- fiction aspects that don’t always look convincing. The visual effects are solid, considering the movie’s low budget. There’s a predictability to some of the action scenes, but “I.S.S.” will keep viewers guessing (up until a certain point) about who on the ship is being honest and who is not. The movie’s ending won’t satisfy viewers who want clearly defined answers, but the ending is meant to show that there are no easy answers when it comes to human nature and being in outer space during an apocalyptic war on Earth.

Bleecker Street released “I.S.S.” in U.S. cinemas on January 19, 2024.

Review: ‘Our Friend,’ starring Casey Affleck, Dakota Johnson and Jason Segel

January 22, 2021

by Carla Hay

Dakota Johnson and Casey Affleck in “Our Friend” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions/Gravitas Ventures)

“Our Friend”

Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Culture Representation: Taking place from 2000 to 2014 in Fairhope, Alabama; New Orleans; and briefly in Pakistan, the dramatic film “Our Friend” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the middle-class and working-class.

Culture Clash: A married couple and their male best friend go through ups and downs in their relationship, especially after the wife gets ovarian cancer and the best friend temporarily moves in the family home to help the spouses take care of their two young daughters.

Culture Audience: “Our Friend” will appeal primarily to people interested in emotionally authentic, dramatic movies about loyal friendships and how cancer affects relationships.

Isabella Kai, Jason Segel and Violet McGraw in “Our Friend” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions/Gravitas Ventures)

The tearjerker drama “Our Friend,” which is inspired by a true story, departs from the usual formula of a family coping with cancer. When someone in a family has this disease, cancer dramas usually focus on how a spouse, parent or child is dealing with it. Those aspects are definitely in “Our Friend,” but there’s also the unusual component of a male best friend moving into the family household to be a nurturing supporter. Thanks to heartfelt performances from the main cast members, “Our Friend” is a genuine and relatable film, despite being the type of drama where it’s easy to predict exactly how it’s going to end.

Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite and written by Brad Ingelsby, “Our Friend” is based on a 2015 Esquire magazine essay titled “The Friend,” written by journalist Matt Teague. (“The Friend” was the original title for this movie.) In this deeply personal article, he described the generosity of Dane Faucheux, the longtime best friend of Matt and his wife Nicole Teague. After Nicole was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Dane (who was a bachelor at the time) put his life on hold in New Orleans to temporarily move in with the couple in Fairhope, Alabama, to help them take care of their household and the couple’s two young daughters Molly and Evangeline, nicknamed Evie.

The movie “Our Friend” expands on that essay by jumping back and forth in time to show how the friendship between Matt, Nicole and Dane evolved over 14 years, including the highs, lows and everything in between. The movie’s story spans from the year 2000 (when the three of them met) to the year 2014, when Nicole’s cancer was at its worst. The cinematic version of the story avoids a lot of nauseating details that are in the Esquire essay about bodily functions of a cancer patient. Instead, the movie focuses on showing this intense friendship from the individual perspectives of Matt, Nicole and Dane.

Nicole and Dane met each other while living in New Orleans in their early 20s, when she was one of the stars of a local musical theater production and he was a lighting operator in the crew. Nicole is open-hearted, compassionate and the type of person whom a lot of people feel like could be their best friend. Dane is socially awkward and somewhat introverted but an overall good guy who has some immaturity issues.

In the movie, Nicole was already married to Matt when she met Dane, who didn’t know that Nicole was married when he asked Nicole out on a date. Dane’s courtship mistake is never shown in the movie, but it’s mentioned in conversations. Once Nicole told Dane about her marital status, they were able to overcome this minor embarrassment and became good friends. Dane and Nicole are comfortable enough with each other that talk about their love lives with each other.

Dane is thoughtful and generous (he gives homemade mix CDs to Nicole), and he and Nicole love to talk about music, even when they agree to disagree. She thinks Led Zeppelin is “the greatest band ever,” while he doesn’t really care for Led Zeppelin. The Led Zeppelin reference in the movie is significant because two of Led Zeppelin’s original songs—”Ramble On” and “Going to California”—are used in emotional montage scenes in “Our Friend.”

By making Nicole an actress who loves musical theater, “Our Friend” gives Johnson a chance to showcase her singing skills, which are very good but not outstanding. Johnson sings two songs in the movie: “Hands All Hands Around” (from the musical “Quilters”) and a cover version of the Grateful Dead’s “If I Had the World to Give.” Johnson also did some singing in her 2020 movie “The High Note,” so maybe this is her way of demonstrating that she wants to be a professional singer too.

One day, Dane asks for Nicole’s advice about how to approach a theater co-worker named Charlotte (played by Denée Benton) whom he wants to ask out on a date. Unbeknownst to him, Charlotte isn’t attracted to Dane and has already been dating the theater’s stage manager named Aaron (played by Jake Owen). Minutes after Dane confides in Nicole that he’s going to ask Charlotte on a date, Charlotte tells Nicole in a private conversation that she suspects that Dane has a crush on her but Charlotte isn’t interested in dating Dane. It’s one of many examples in the movie that show how Nicole is a trusted confidante to many people in her life and she knows how to make people feel special.

Of course, Dane eventually finds out that Charlotte and Aaron are dating. Dane mopes about it for a little bit when he sees Charlotte and Aaron showing some heavy public displays of affection at a bar on the night that Nicole introduces Matt to Dane. The first time Matt and Dane meet, it’s at this bar, and Dane makes an apology to Matt for asking Nicole out on a date. Matt tells Dane not to worry about it and says that he has no hard feelings.

While Dane watches Charlotte and Aaron from a distance at the bar, Dane seem to takes their coupling way more personally than he should. He grumbles to Nicole and Matt that Charlotte seems to be rubbing her feelings for Aaron in Dane’s face. It’s a sign (one of many) that one of Dane’s flaws is that he can be emotionally insecure and overly needy.

As the movie skips back and forth in time, it’s eventually shown that Charlotte and Aaron have gotten married and have two children together. Charlotte and Nicole remain very close friends, even after Matt and Nicole move to Fairhope. Matt and Nicole relocated to Fairhope so that Nicole could be close to her parents. The parents of Matt and Nicole parents are never seen in the movie. After Nicole finds out that she has cancer in 2012, Matt tells Dane that Nicole has been afraid to tell her parents about the cancer diagnosis.

By the time that Nicole and Matt are living in Fairhope during her cancer ordeal, it’s shown in the movie that their daughter Molly (played by Isabella Kai) is about 11 or 12 years old, while their daughter Evie played by Violet McGraw) is about 5 or 6 years old. Molly is sometimes moody and quick-tempered, while Evie is generally a happy-go-lucky kid. Molly’s personality is more like Matt’s, while Evie is more like Nicole.

Over the years, it’s apparent that Aaron likes to make snide, condescending comments about Dane to other people whenever Dane isn’t around to defend himself. Aaron always makes digs about Dane working in dead-end jobs (such as a sales clerk at an athletic clothing store) and Dane not seeming to have an career goals or any real direction in life. Dane (who has a goofy sense of humor) has tried to be a stand-up comedian, but these dreams never really go anywhere, mainly because he just isn’t that talented. However, when Dane practices his stand-up routine for Nicole, she politely laughs at his corny jokes, and it makes him feel good.

Dave has financial problems, to the point where he’s sometimes temporarily homeless and has to stay at friends’ places or has to move back home with his parents, and he seems unsure of his purpose in life. B y contrast, Matt’s career as a journalist is flourishing. One of Matt’s first jobs was as a reporter at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, where he felt stifled and bored with covering fluffy local news. Matt’s real goal is to be a globetrotting journalist, where he gets to cover what he calls “important” news, such as wars and politics, that can make a big difference in people’s lives.

Matt gets his wish and his career is thriving as a freelancer covering war news for publications such as The New York Times and The Atlantic. But all that traveling has taken a toll on his marriage to Nicole. In 2008, while Matt is on assignment in Pakistan, he and Nicole have an argument on the phone because he took an assignment to go to Libya without discussing it with Nicole first.

Matt doesn’t think that he did anything wrong, because he says that the family needs the money. Nicole, who’s now a homemaker, tells Matt that she feels like she’s a “single parent” and complains to him: “I feel like I married a war correspondent, not a journalist.”

Matt goes home for a few days before he has to go to Libya. And he gets unsolicited advice from Dane to not take the assignment in Libya and stay with the family. This leads to an argument between Matt and Dane where Dane points out Matt’s personality flaws, while Matt insults Dane for having a directionless life with no real career.

Because the movie’s timeline is not in chronological order, viewers have to piece together the ebbs and flows of the friendship between Matt, Nicole and Dane. There are hints that Dane struggles with his mental health, especially in an extended scene taking place in 2010 that shows Dane abruptly packing up and leaving his parents’ house so he can go camping by himself in remote Southwest canyons. Before he leaves, Dane’s older brother Davey (played by Richard Speight Jr.) asks Dane if Dane is having one of his “episodes.”

During this solitary excursion, Dane meets a friendly German camper named Teresa (played by Gwendoline Christie), who’s also traveling by herself. Teresa asks Dane to join her on her hikes. Dane is standoffish at first, but Teresa insists on hanging out with Dane, and he eventually warms up to her a little bit. Teresa senses that Dane is deeply troubled and unhappy with his life, so she shares with him a very personal experience that changes his perspective. It’s one of the better scenes in the movie, proving that not all of the emotional gravitas in “Our Friend” has to do with Nicole’s cancer diagnosis.

However, “Our Friend” is still very much a cancer movie. There’s the heart-wrenching scene showing Matt and Nicole deciding how they are going to break the news to their children that Nicole is going to die from cancer. There’s the predictable scene where Nicole makes a “bucket list” of things she wants to do before she dies, with Matt and Dane frantically trying to make some of the more difficult things on the list (such as being grand marshal of the next Mardi Gras parade) come true for Nicole. And then there are the expected scenes of Nicole having medication-related meltdowns.

The Teague family members also have the misfortune of their beloved pet pug Gracie being diagnosed with cancer around the same time that Nicole gets sick with cancer. While Matt spends time with Nicole in the hospital, Dane has the task of taking Gracie to the veterinarian, who tells Dane that it’s best if the terminally ill dog undergoes euthanasia. Dane, who is not the owner of the dog, is put in the awkward position of having to represent the Teague family when the dog is permanently put to sleep. Dane also has to tell Molly and Evie the bad news about Gracie’s death, because Matt and Nicole are too preoccupied in the hospital.

During all of this cancer drama, Dane gets some pushback and criticism for deciding to move in with Matt and Nicole. At the time of Nicole’s cancer diagnosis, Dane was living in New Orleans and had been dating a baker named Kat (played by Marielle Scott) for about a year. Dane and Kat’s relationship has progressed to the point where Kat has given him spare keys to her home.

At first, Kat was fine with Dane going to visit the Teagues in Fairhope (which is about 160 miles away from New Orleans), as a show of support for the family. But the visits became longer and longer, until Dane eventually moved in with the Teagues. And Kat wasn’t so okay with that decision. Aaron also makes snarky comments to the Teagues’ circle of friends about Dane being a freeloader, until Matt eventually puts Aaron in his place for being such an unrelenting jerk about Dane.

The movie also shows that Matt and Nicole have other challenges in their lives besides her cancer. Before she was diagnosed with cancer, their marriage hit a rough patch due to issues over jealousy and infidelity. And before and during Nicole’s cancer crisis, Molly was feeling resentment toward Matt because of his long absences from home. Molly sometimes lashes out at Matt and makes it clear that she thinks Nicole is a much better parent than Matt is.

The biggest noticeable flaw about “Our Friend” is there seems to be a gender double standard in how the three main characters physically age in the movie. Nicole looks like she’s barely aged throughout the entire movie, even though the story takes place over the course of 14 years. It’s a contrast to how Matt and Dane age over the years, particularly with their hair. In the early years of the friendship, Segel wears a wig to make Dane look younger, while in the later years, he sports his natural receding hairline. Likewise, Affleck’s natural gray hair is seen in the later years of the friendship.

This discrepancy has a lot to do with the fact that in real life, Johnson is 14 years younger than Affleck, and she’s nine years younger than Segel. The real Nicole, Matt and Dane were much closer to each other in age. This movie’s unwillingness to show a woman aging over 14 years and casting a much-younger female co-star as the love interest of the leading male actor are part of bigger age discrimination issues that make it harder for actresses over the age of 35 to be cast as a love interest to someone who’s close to their age.

And when Nicole has cancer, the physical damages from cancer are barely shown. There’s the typical “dark circles under the eyes” look with makeup, as well as mentions of Nicole’s hair falling out because of chemotherapy. (At various times, she wears a headband or a wig.)

But the movie could have used a little more realism in showing the devastating physical toll that cancer can take. More often than not in the cancer scenes, the movie makes Nicole just look like she’s hung over from a wild night of partying, instead of looking like a real cancer patient who’s deep in chemotherapy. It’s not as if Johnson had to lose a scary amount of weight to look like a convincing cancer patient, but more could have been done with makeup and/or visual effects to make it look more realistic that her character was dying of cancer.

However, the filmmakers (including film editor Colin Patton) should get a lot of credit for taking the non-chronological scenes and making everything into a cohesive story that’s easy to understand. “Our Friend” is not the type of movie that can be watched while distracted by something else, because the year that a sequence takes place is shown on the screen to guide viewers. People watching this movie have to pay attention to these milestone year indicators to get the full scope of the story.

“Our Friend” is a well-cast movie where all the actors do convincing portrayals of the emotions expressed in the movie. (Cherry Jones has a small but important role as a hospice nurse named Faith Pruett.) As much as the movie is about Matt and Nicole’s marriage, it’s also very much about the friendship between Matt, Nicole and Dane.

Even though Nicole and Dane were friends before Dane and Matt knew each other, Nicole and Dane’s friendship starts to wane a little bit, the more debilitated with cancer she becomes. There’s a noticeable brotherly bond that develops between Matt and Dane, especially when they have to face the reality of life without Nicole. It doesn’t diminish Nicole’s role in the film, but it realistically shows how relationships can change when people have to prepare for the end of a loved one’s life. “Our Friend” is not an easy film to watch for anyone who hates to think about dying from cancer, but the sadness in the movie is balanced out by the joy of having true love from family and friends.

Roadside Attractions and Gravitas Ventures released “Our Friend” in U.S. cinemas, on January 22, 2021, the same date that Universal Pictures Home Entertainment released the movie on digital and VOD.

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