Is ‘Our Friend’ Based on a True Story?

“We don’t tell each other the truth about dying, as a people,” wrote Matthew Teague in 2015. “Not real dying.”
Teague, a writer from Alabama, attempted to correct that with his award-winning Esquire essay, “The Friend: Love Is Not a Big Enough Word,” which described in excruciating detail his experience as a caretaker for his wife after she was diagnosed with cancer, and spoke in less detail about his best friend, Dane Faucheux, who came to stay with the Teague family during that time.
Now, Teague’s story is a feature film starring Casey Affleck. Our Friend, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, is coming to theaters and digital on-demand this Friday. But for those curious about the real-life events that inspired the film, read on to learn about the Our Friend true story.

Is the Our Friend movie based on a true story?

Yes. Our Friend is based on the true story of the Teague family, which was originally an article written by Matthew Teague himself for Esquire in 2015. In it, Teague details how his best friend came to stay with his family when his wife was battling cancer, helped him take care of his family, and never left. In the film version—adapted by screenwriter Brad Ingelsby—Affleck stars as Matthew Teague, Dakota Johnson plays his wife Nicole Teague, and Jason Segel plays the friend, Dane Faucheux.

What is the Our Friend true story? Who is Matthew Teague?

Matthew Teague is a writer based in Fairhope, Alabama, and also an executive producer on the upcoming film based on his life, Our Friend.
If you’re interested, I highly recommend giving his National Magazine Award-winning Esquire essay, “The Friend: Love Is Not a Big Enough Word,” a read. In it, Teague describes the experience of becoming his wife’s caregiving in brutal, honest detail. He talks about how she lashed out at him, how she became more and more manic and emotionally unstable, how he began to hide from her, how he broke down trying to clean up her feces, and how he witness bits of undigested food ooze from her wounds. He talks about the relief he felt—even joy—on top of his grief when his wife finally died, and how he felt he had to keep that a secret.
Teague is not out to paint himself as a hero in this essay, and that’s what makes it such an interesting essay. His story, if it’s told honestly, won’t be the typical Hollywood “cancer movie.” In fact, Teague comments several times how inaccurate he found most of those movies to be:

He writes:

The way dying looks, or so I expected, was like this: A small group of friends and family gather around the patient, watching as she draws and releases her final breath. People hold hands and exchange glances to acknowledge how profound the moment is just before a doctor checks for a pulse and announces, “It’s done.”

We’ll have to wait and see how accurate the Our Friend movie is to Teague’s story. Early reviews suggest it may not remain truthful to the tone of Teague’s article.  Variety critic Peter Debuge noted that, “so much of the unpleasantness has been scrubbed from the picture, until what remains is precisely the kind of dishonest, sanitized no-help-to-anyone TV-movie version of death that inspired Teague to set the record straight in the first place.”

Where to watch Our Friend