Sigrid Nunez's 2018 novel The Friend won the National Book Award. It's now a film, starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray, about a woman who inherits a dog after her friend's suicide. She spoke with Terry Gross about the book in 2019.Also, Justin Chang reviews the new French film thriller Misericordia.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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This is Fresh Air. I'm David Bianculli. The new film The Friend, starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray, is based on the novel of the same name by Sigrid Nunez. Her book won a 2018 National Book Award for fiction. It begins with the narrator, a woman, at the memorial of a dear friend who killed himself. He was more than a friend. Years before, he was her writing professor and mentor.
When she was his student, they slept together once, at his suggestion. She wasn't the only student he seduced, but her friendship with him outlasted his three marriages and many affairs. After his death, she reluctantly inherits his dog, a 180-pound Great Dane, who, like her, is grieving. Here's a clip from the film. Bill Murray as Walter and Naomi Watts as Iris are the two old friends.
He's trying to persuade her to get his daughter to help put together a book of his work.
She's lovely, she's bright, I like to work by myself. She's very bright. I just said that, didn't I?
You might appreciate another perspective, you know, someone to bounce things off of.
No, that's not the point.
Young, energetic, and my daughter.
Right, but she hardly knows you, she doesn't know your work, your relationships.
And that's exactly what I'm trying to fix.
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