Matthew Teague is a journalist who has traveled to remote corners of the world for stories. He deals with CIA operations in Pakistan, famine in Somalia, double agents in Northern Ireland. But perhaps his greatest work is the essay he wrote in 2015 for Esquire magazine, entitled ‘The Friend’. Teague dedicated about 6,000 words to the arduous two years he cared for his wife, Nicole, who learned at the age of 34 that she had terminal cancer.
The essay tells the story of her decline and death through the prism of their friendship with Dane Faucheux, a motionless soul who came to visit the Thanksgue family with the Teague family and eventually spent two years around the couple and their two young to take care of daughters. In addition to winning a National Magazine Award, Teague also connected readers in a way his dramatic coverage of Afghanistan or Sri Lanka has never done. They shared their own painful stories with such overwhelming force that he was often ‘dumb’ by the reaction. To this day, he receives passionate, heartbreaking letters.
Hollywood is also calling fast.
And Teague, now 44, knew the drill. Two producers have selected two of his previous pieces, but no films have ever been made. He promised that things would be different this time.
What he did not take into account was how cruel Hollywood can be when a movie comes together, an experience he is still comparing.
First he tries to write the screenplay himself. When That Didn’t Work (‘I Realize I’m Too Close to This,’ he said) he signed on as executive producer and worked closely with writer Brad Ingelsby (‘The Way Back’) to produce a film which depicted both the realities of death and celebrated the life that had come before.
Soon, a group of well-known actors (Casey Affleck, Dakota Johnson, Jason Segel) descended on Fairhope, Ala, to portray the Tlegar and Faucheux. Gabriela Cowperthwaite directed the actors in scenes shot in the hospital where Nicole was treated, and in a house just three doors from the Teague residence. (The family still lives in the same house. Teague is remarried and now also has a 3-month-old son named Wilder.)
The text alternates between the past and the present and jumps mainly into both the nasty cancer and the banalities of marriage, offering a portrait of a family that is completely recognizable and frighteningly unique. Young women are not supposed to die of cancer in their home while their young children are in the next room.
But fueled by the profound reaction to his essay and by his career as a journalist, Teague is committed to authenticity.
‘The bottom line is that I wanted my wife’s legacy and memory to have a great deal of respect. I did not want to handle it wrong, “he said. “And I have a mission to tell the truth about that time and everything from it.”
There are parts of Teague’s original essay that made it appear directly on screen: the words of the doctor when he revealed Nicole’s diagnosis (“It’s everywhere. Like someone dipping a paintbrush into cancer and throwing it around her belly”) ), the friendship between Teague and Faucheux, and Nicole’s death wishes (jumps into a fountain in the city center with all her family and friends and becomes the Grand Marshal in the city’s Mardi Gras parade). “What her short life has not lacked has made it up in height,” Teague wrote in Esquire.
The more intricate parts that made the essay so memorable in part have been omitted: specifically the role of Teague in the grotesque art of wound wrapping and the physical horrors that come with it.
“There are things I can write about in print, and people can take it up and be honest,” he said. “If you see it on screen, people will throw their popcorn and run out of the theater.”
Despite his carefully calibrated work, success in Hollywood is never a guarantee.
The Toronto Film Festival in 2019 accepts the film and gives it a coveted opening weekend finale.
‘Teague, who sat in the Princess of Wales Theater, was a flurry of nerves, held together only by sheer will and with the help of a friend and fellow journalist, Tom Junod, who was also the subject of’ a Hollywood movie, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” about his unlikely relationship with Fred Rogers.
“I was amazed at how emotionally I looked at it,” Teague recalls. “But what really overwhelmed me was how emotional the audience was. There were a lot of people who felt a lot of things. So I felt like I was done right by Nicole. ”
Actress Kristen Stewart sat behind him, and hearing her sniff was another confirmation that everything would be fine. There were audible sobs from the audience, a standing ovation and a journey to the stage, where the cast answered a serious wave of questions. “There was nothing but love from that audience,” Teague said.
But when he returned to his hotel room later that evening, early reviews of the trade publications ended up like a gut punch. The Hollywood Reporter calls it “out of touch with the emotions he is desperately trying to evoke.” Variety addressed the issue to turn his ‘devastating essay’ into an ‘inspiring group hug’. In that review, critic Peter Debruge praised the actors ‘performance, but he wrote:’ So much of the unpleasantness has been scrapped from the picture until the remaining one is exactly the kind of dishonest, purified TV movie that does not help anyone. version of the death that inspired Teague to set the record in the first place. ”
Today, Teague is still sitting on this critique. Despite spending years in newsrooms and understanding the role of critics, this criticism is unfair.
“I just came out of a room full of people who had never read the essay, knew nothing of the essay and just took the film on its own terms and found it very moving,” he said. “Using my own story to defeat my own story was very painful.”
Cowperthwaite also felt the anger and said the early reviews just took the wind out of me. But the director, who made four films, including the BAFTA-nominated documentary “Blackfish,” had more experience dealing with criticism. “This is just one of the struggling truths behind our industry,” she said. “It never hurts, but I think the longer you are in this creative world, the more you learn to metabolize the pain faster.”
For Teague, the criticism felt unfair, but more importantly, he was concerned about the effect it would have on the fate of the film. Movies like ‘The Friend’ enter festivities with the hope of reaching a solid distribution deal, and the early trade talks are extraordinarily important when studios and streamers decide what to buy. Would the film find a home with initial critical response so lukewarm?
“I was in a panic because I did not know what was going to happen to this thing that is so precious to me,” Teague said. ‘Are we sunk? Are people going to get a chance to see it? ”
Reviews did improve. In Vanity Fair, Katey Rich wrote that the film finds a more thoughtful way through the kind of story that often feels on screen, no matter how devastating it may be in real life. ‘The score of Rotten Tomatoes is now 80 per cent fresh. And producer financier Teddy Schwarzman said the film left the festival with four offerings, although an official deal was only announced in January.
Delayed due to the pandemic, the film, now titled “Our Friend”, will now debut in theaters and on demand on Friday.
Teague uses the experience as a growth opportunity in his career as a journalist. “The semblance of public criticism has helped me become more aware of how frightening and helpless a story topic can feel,” he said in a follow-up email. ‘It’s easy to forget, even for a writer who empathizes. Sometimes even a short story – or a hastily written review – can break someone’s heart for a long, long time. ”
Yet he also did not give up on Hollywood. The author recently returned to the screenwriting game and adapted his 2003 GQ article on the top war games in North Carolina into a mini-series called “Pineland” that is now sinking around.
“It’s not a soft industry,” he said. “But it has nothing to do with journalism – my first love – for hard push.”