Our Friend

The director Gabriela Cowperthwaite, who made the stunning documentary Blackfish, orchestrates the action loosely - the pacing is, at best, leisurely - but the character portraits are acute and the three central performances flawless.

Our Friend is a heartbreaking movie, the tears come early and they come often, but it's not without hope.

I was tempted to dismissOur Friendas just another movie about a loved one's battle with a fatal disease. Then I watched it. Yes, it's a tearjerker, but it's derived from a first-person article and has three exceptional performances

Some things remain a mystery. If we were a little bit better as people, this decent, clear-eyed movie hints, they might not.

Its strength really lies in its ability to recognize grief, in all of its raggedness and messiness, and not shy away from it.

While "Our Friend" is effective as drama - the acting is uniformly excellent - and is beautifully shot, the film pulls its punches to its, and the audience's, detriment.

I could have spent so much time with these characters in this story but it would have required another box of tissues to get through an extended run time.

In the end, Our Friend ends up being much more than just another film that aims to portray the cruel and unspoken truths about cancer and death. It becomes a movie about the beauty of friendship that lies in the important and the smallest moments, too.

Our Friend’s three terrific leads overcome the narrative’s somewhat scattered structure and suffuse the film with stirring sincerity.

Aside for some wobbly structuring and a few weird song choices, “Our Friend” is a moving and distinctly human study of love, friendship, commitment, and of what it takes to come out on the other side of such a life-shattering trauma.