Sigrid Nunez’s books do not scream “movie adaptation,” given their journal-like first-person intimacy and homebody settings. In her 2018 National Book Award winner, The Friend, a writing professor takes care of her mentor’s dog after his death. The book has a natural flow that one worries a movie could botch. Not so for Nunez, who approved a new adaptation. The Friend stars Naomi Watts as the writer tasked with housing the Great Dane that was left behind. Nunez was admittedly surprised by the New York-based directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s long-held choice for the mentor to the Watts character. “Let’s be honest, I would never have thought ‘Bill Murray,’ because in my book, the characters are supposed to be the same age,” she says. Nonetheless, she is “thrilled that he’s in it!” —Nicolas Rapold