New York City writer Iris finds her comfortable, solitary life thrown into disarray after her closest friend and mentor bequeaths her a Great Dane named Apollo. The huge dog immediately creates practical problems for Iris, from furniture destruction to eviction notices, as well as more existential ones. Yet as Iris finds herself unexpectedly bonding with Apollo, she begins to come to terms with her past, and her own creative inner life.
Top Billed Cast
Naomi Watts
Iris
Bill Murray
Walter
Ann Dowd
Marjorie
Constance Wu
Tuesday
Sarah Pidgeon
Val
Carla Gugino
Elaine
Noma Dumezweni
Barbara
Felix Solis
Hektor
Detailed Critic & Audience Reviews
C CinemaSerfVerified TMDB Critic
2025-05-04
“Walter” (Bill Murray) is a cranky old author who decides that he’s had enough of life and so leaves his wife “Barbara” (Noma Dumezweni) with a four-foot, four-legged, slobbering problem. She decides that the best place for “Apollo” is with his longtime friend “Iris” (Naomi Watts). Bluntly, she would rather stick pins in her eyes, but she’s a bit of a sucker for a sob story and so soon she he has a new roomie in her tiny, rent-controlled, apartment where she is swiftly relegated from her bed to the floor. The mutt is clearly pining for his master, so she is going to have to...
H Harry_GillVerified TMDB Critic
2026-07-02
Naomi Watts inherits a 180-pound Great Dane after her mentor's suicide, and the film's whole trick is refusing to turn that into a cute rescue story. Apollo will not ride the elevator, takes over her bed, eats almost nothing for days, and Iris, a committed cat person with zero patience for dogs this size, has to learn to live around him instead of training him into something easier.
What makes it work is how literally the film treats Apollo as a griever. He is not comic relief and he is not a metaphor with fur on it, he is a huge, physically demanding animal whose refusal to function normal...
