"FRIENDS: The Reunion" Review: A Scripted Unscripted Revisit Of Everything We Waited To Watch Since 2004

This is 2021 and not every revisit needs to happen in a scripted, orderly, fashion of Hollywood. A FRIENDS: Reunion can simply happen if the original cast members, Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry, Matt Le Blanc, Tom Selleck, Maggie Wheeler, Reese Witherspoon, Christina Pickles, Elliot Gould, James Michael Tyler, Larry Henkins, (other cast and guest members of FRIENDS) revisit and recall the times when they were goofy around the sets of the show. 

IB Times India had predicted that the reunion might be less of a scripted episode and more of a talk show, and we were right. Malala Yousafzai Gilani too had a guest appearance but thankfully, even amidst such trying times, nothing went political, and the show remained an emotional commentary on what it used to be 17 years ago and how everything changed now.

It started with David Schwimmer walking in first and revisiting the old sets which made him famous. It was after 17 years when the cast had come back on these sets which made them stars. Prior to that each of them had been associated with different television shows, but they were not extremely successful at it. David had even given up on his dreams of being a famous television actor, however, Marta Kauffman and David Crane convinced him otherwise. 

When all the cast members finally walked in with their audio equipment attached behind them, they started sharing nostalgic, behind-the-scene moments from the show: The time when Courteney wrote her lines on the table; When Matt had a dislocation after he jumped onto the chair; When David and Jennifer had a major crush on each other and they thought that no one noticed but in reality, everybody knew. The cast members of the show had become stars, and they had their own share of problems that only the six of them could relate to.

The iconic song, 'I'll Be There For You was played with video clips from the reunion and earlier shots from the show.....

FRIENDS had always been a light-hearted sitcom, that didn't delve much into American politics and the reunion adhered to the original appeal of the show. The cast members sat on a circular table and read out the scripts from the show. Director Ben Winston interweaved FRIENDS: The Reunion with 20201 clips of the aged actors redoing lines from the show and the original footages that went on air. The director included blooper episodes, which the cast watched in the iconic purple room, where the television had been centrally placed in front of the couch. 

Now, imagine if every moment of your college life, teenage life had been recorded and revisited. You get together with your friends in the same rooms where you first met and revisit the times when you were goofy and had no idea that years later you would become highly paid television stars with a whopping earning from Netflix and right now HBO Max. The cast members revisited similar nostalgia.

The reunion was basically a recorded moment of the nostalgia of six actors coming together after 17 years and re-reading scripts that made them famous. It ended on a 'high fashion note', where model Cindy Crawford walked on the ramp wearing Ross's leather pants, Justin Biber walked as Sputnik, and Matt Le Blanc wore all of Chandler Bing's clothes. 

The writers, makers, producers and creators of FRIENDS have made it clear that there will never be a film on FRIENDS, bringing the cast together, however, there will be moments, where after every five, ten, or fifteen years the cast would get together, meet each other in the presence of the cameras and talk about how life used to be back then.

Maybe in the year 2040, a few members of the cast would get together and revisit 2021, when they all invited Kit Harrington, David Beckham, BTS, Lady Gaga, for a candid reunion show, however, they would never ever reopen the closed chapters of Ross Geller, Rachel Greene, Monica Geller, Chandler Bing, Phoebe Buffay, Mike Hannigan, and Joey Tribbiani. Their lives ended in 2004 and will officially never reopen.