Weekend Watch: A Good Person
Writer/director Zach Braff returns with another tale of recovery and humanity
Image Credit: MGM
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, Zach Braff tackles addiction and depression with Florence Pugh acting her heart out. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite
How you respond to Zach Braff’s latest film will really depend on how you view him as a filmmaker. Since his big break with indie success A Garden State, he has, with one exception (studio comedy gig Going In Style) ploughed his own row on the big screen following his debut with indulgent meditation on sickness and family in Wish I Was Here (which faced extra criticism after he hit Kickstarter to raise a portion of its budget).
A Good Person is in the same style as his earlier indies, though this time Braff stays behind the camera. And it’s a smart move. This is no dig on his acting chops –– he’s good in both of his movies, and I enjoy his work on Scrubs (and its subsequent re-watch podcast, Fake Doctors Real Friends) –– but his sensitive directing skills outweigh his presence on screen.
And when you’ve got two powerhouse actors on screen in Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman, you can see why he’d step back and let them work. Since it’s thanks mostly to the lead duo that A Good Person works as well as it does.
This is the story of Allison (Pugh), a young woman who seems to have a bright future ahead of her. She’s blissfully engaged to marry Nathan (Chinaza Uche) and successful in her career as a drug rep, but a momentary lapse in concentration while driving ends in a deadly car crash that kills her soon-to-be sister- and brother-in-law.
Allie descends into depression, confusion and, thanks to the painkillers prescribed for her injuries, addiction. She meets Daniel (Freeman), a former New Jersey police officer and recovering alcoholic who was to be Allie’s father-in-law before the accident –– though they’d not met previously because of his estrangement from his eldest son –– by chance at an AA meeting and begins an awkward but healing path to understanding. Through Daniel’s teenage granddaughter Ryan (Celeste O’Connor), who was orphaned by the accident, more complex steps towards peace and forgiveness are taken.
Though it can be heavy-handed with its themes and ideas, the film does find a way to explore them without quite hitting every trope on the way. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty, but they are elevated beyond the usual levels in the hands of Pugh and Freeman (and the rest of the cast, who also do some great work).
Shannon deserves credit for keeping up with the lead duo (at least in the more limited screen time that she enjoys) and Braff takes care the leaven the sobbing, hugging and learning with some humour, such as Ryan’s boyfriend ending up chased half-naked to his car by a hose-brandishing neighbour of Daniels, who labels him a “f***boy”. And the writer/director has made a point of fleshing out the characters beyond Daniel and Allison, with unresolved issues between Nathan and his father, and Ryan’s very real pain driving her teenage angst.
But it’s really the Pugh and Freeman show, the two actors of very different generations truly meshing and forming the heart of the film.
On the negative side, not even Freeman’s legendary gravel tones and succinct diction can do much with the cloying and cheesy metaphors about real life compared to model train sets that open and close the movie. There are welcome life lessons, and then there are being beaten around the ears with a block of cheese.
Still, A Good Person is worth it for those two leads, and while it’s unlikely to cause much of a stir at the box office, would make an easy watch at home one evening.
A Good Person is in UK and US cinemas now.