The spontaneous spreading of liquid films results from the balance between an energetic driving term and dissipative processes. For films of mesoscopic thickness, the dissipative term is proportional to the bulk viscosity eta of the liquid, For thinner films, the observed dynamics depends also on the friction coefficient zeta(1) of the first molecular layer of liquid on the solid. For high friction, the;overall film growth should be mainly controlled by the value of eta. For low friction, the friction coefficient zeta(1) should become the leading parameter. This behavior is investigated in the framework of the model of a stratified droplet recently proposed by de Gennes. Complementary information is provided by numerical simulations when solid-liquid interactions (which control the value of zeta(1)) are modified keeping the liquid-liquid ones the same (i.e., the bulk viscosity eta). Moreover, the numerical simulations provide information on molecules displacements inside the droplet. Experiments were performed with short polymer chains below the three-dimensional disentanglement threshold, where the polymer behaves as a simple, nonvolatile liquid. High and low friction correspond do different thickness profiles. The dynamics of the first layer in both cases agrees with the theoretical expectations.