My Best Friend

MOVIE #1,365 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 02.12.24 This was a bit hard to parse: Yorgos Lanthimos’s earliest effort (he co-directed with the film's star, Lakis Lazopoulos) is either his attempt at (Greek) mainstream success with a playful, albeit cynical romcom, or something that’s searching for the other side of the black comedy by leaning into the goofball shit instead of the darkness. My gut says it’s the former, but the Yorgos brand being what it is at this point, I don’t want to discount the latter. Some of these jokes — like the group sex / pilot one (don't worry about it)— are just total nonstarters, and I can’t totally chalk it up to the foreign culture/language divide. Its best or funniest moments are also its most absurd, like this drive-in theater playing a movie called “The Perverted Fishbowl” which is just a dildo floating in an aquarium? Sure…

There are also a slew of what seem like non-sequitur moments — like the bald men protesting being bald, and the parade of moms wearing headlamps pushing strollers in the night — but they're subtle satirical digs when you think about it. The film is at its least effective when it leans into When Harry Met Sally level jokes. It’s also drenched in a putrid early 00s color tone that can only be described as ‘vomit’. Still, I was weirdly into it for the duration.

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My Best Friend (Greek: Ο καλύτερός μου φίλος, romanized: O kalyteros mou filos) is a 2001 Greek comedy film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and Lakis Lazopoulos. It is Lanthimos' feature directorial debut. It was released on March 2, 2001.