The movie “Our Friend,” was released January 29th, 2021 with a running time of two hours and four minutes. Coming up on its one year anniversary, this story is a very heartwarming one based on true events.

Matthew Teague wrote an article in 2015, called “The Friend.” The article was describing the events leading up to his wife Nicole Teague’s death. It sparked him and the director Gabriela Cowperthwaite to create this touching movie.

This drama/romance production stars Casey Affleck (as Matt Teague) as a husband and father, Dakota Johnson (as Nicole Teague) who is a loving mom/wife that gets diagnosed with cancer, and Jason Segel (as Dane Faucheux) who is Matt and Nicoles’ best friend.

“Our Friend” starts off with Matt (Casey Affleck) and Nicole (Dakota Johnson) Teague living happily in their country-styled home in Alabama, with their two young daughters, Molly and Evie. 

Nicole is an actress with a local theater, and Matt is a journalist. 

Nicole spent her days singing in the theater, while Matt was writing a new story everyday.

All of a sudden, the Teague family gets heartbreaking news, Nicole has cancer. More specifically, ovarian cancer. They call this cancer the silent killer, it went from bad to worse in this case. Their world was turned upside down in an instant, and Matt found himself having to be the primary caretaker of both children, while doing as much as he could for his dying wife. 

Matt suffered in silence, he would occasionally have spells of fainting or emotional outbursts of anger.

Then they got a very unexpected visitor. The couples’ best friend, Dane (Jason Segel), dropped his life to come to the family’s home and help Matt. 

Dane would do simple errands for Matt, like getting groceries, taking out the trash, cleaning the house, watching the kids, etc. Matt did not accept the help at first, but after a while Dane grew on him, and they became an amazing team.

They would both watch the kids while the other worked, they would all go together to visit Nicole at her treatment, and they’d have family dinners too. Dane would drop everything he was doing to help Matt, Nicole, and the girls.

You would think that this movie has a very basic storyline, but in reality it is very different. 

The timeline of the story jumps around, so you have to focus on what is going on. It will jump between years and days, but it fits the film and the story so well.

According to Roger Ebert Reviews, “”Our Friend” is very good at where it really counts and that’s on the small details, the everyday life aspect of doing errands, cooking dinner, while your family is going through this harrowing ordeal.”

The small details of this movie is what made it worth watching. The detail from Teague’s original article that got put into the movie is heartbreaking to watch.

IMDb rated the movie 7.3 stars out of 10. “Our Friend” grossed $240,160 its opening weekend in the US and Canada.

Personally, I rate this movie a 9 out of 10. The storyline of this movie jumped around, but it also made the film feel more like real life rather than a movie. 

It touched my heart, and it is aimed at a slightly more mature audience, rather than children. The film is available on Prime Video, included with prime.