Written and Directed by Scott McGhee and David Siegel, adapting a book by Sigrid Nunez | 119 min | ▲▲▲ 1/2

One of my favourite movies is Anthony Minghella’s Truly Madly Deeply, from 1991.  It’s about Nina (Juliet Stevenson), a translator and a musician whose partner, Jamie (Alan Rickman), dies unexpectedly, leaving her angry and bereft. Then, without warning, he comes back, haunting her apartment but also allowing her a little time to come to terms with her feelings of loss.

I couldn’t help but think of that film here. It’s New York instead of London, but we have an independent woman mourning someone close to her, her mentor and best friend, who died suddenly. In The Friend, he doesn’t come back as a ghost, but he still haunts her life when he leaves his 150 lb. Great Dane for her to look after in her apartment, which the dog practically burgles.

And while The Friend doesn’t quite reach the depths of feeling that Truly Madly Deeply manages, it’s still a thoughtful, occasionally moving film about grief and the healing quality of dogs.

This is both a New York intellectual upper-crust movie, the likes of which Woody Allen used to throw out once a year, and a dog movie. Naomi Watts is Iris, a writer and editor, whose best pal, famed writer Walter (Bill Murray), commits suicide. Walter’s wife, Barbara (Noma Dumezweni) tells Iris that he wanted Iris to take his dog, Apollo. But Iris lives in a rent-controlled apartment just off Washington Square that doesn’t allow dogs.

That’s the key conflict here, what will she do with Apollo. She wants to honour Walter’s wishes, but she cannot handle this animal. He seems to be grieving in his own way — he cuddles with Walter’s Columbia t-shirt and takes over Iris’ bed. He scratches to go out first thing in the morning, but he won’t go in the ancient elevator, so Iris has to climb many flights of stairs with the dog every time they go down to the street.

This while earning dirty looks from the building super, Hektor (Felix Solis), but some comfort from friendly neighbour, Majorie (Ann Dowd). She still has people from Walter’s life in her orbit including his ex-wife, Elaine (Carla Gugino), his scattered 20-something daughter from another relationship, Val (Sarah Pidgeon), and someone named Tuesday (Constance Wu), who is just appalling.

Watts does an excellent job channeling her frustration and anxiety. She’s floating around this New York intellectual world, trying to edit Walter’s correspondence into a book, struggling in midlife with an apartment that’s remarkably smaller than all her friends’ while still being effortlessly glamorous. She’s like Annie Hall’s cleverer niece.

It’s actually wonderful to watch a movie set in this familiar milieu without Allen’s neuroses and obsessions on display, the gorgeous cosmopolitan of Manhattan suffused in a jazzy score, plus a great cover of “Everybody’s Talkin'” from Iggy Pop — you could call this Midday Cowgirl. The dog’s as big as a horse, certainly bigger than Dustin Hoffman.

At the same time, a bit more of Allen’s biting, satirical humour wouldn’t have gone amiss. Murray isn’t in it enough for his curmudgeonly spirit to have much of an effect, nor do we really understand why he took his own life — that sadness is just out there, heavy and ambiguous.  The melancholy spirit of grief reaches its nadir with a genuinely cruel false ending on a beach upstate, but it’s all OK when the credits roll.

That dog, he’s the real star. The harlequin coat, mismatched eyes, strange grace, and keening howl make Apollo (real name, Bing), the best reason to watch The Friend. Fortunately, we get a few other good reasons, too, in the performances, script, and Greenwich Village experience.