SummaryDaniel (Morgan Freeman) is brought together with Allison (Florence Pugh), the once thriving young woman with a bright future who was involved in an unimaginable tragedy that took his daughter’s life. As grief-stricken Daniel navigates raising his teenage granddaughter and Allison seeks redemption, they discover that friendship, forgivene...
SummaryDaniel (Morgan Freeman) is brought together with Allison (Florence Pugh), the once thriving young woman with a bright future who was involved in an unimaginable tragedy that took his daughter’s life. As grief-stricken Daniel navigates raising his teenage granddaughter and Allison seeks redemption, they discover that friendship, forgivene...
A work of art such as A Good Person cannot be the product of some casual connection. It’s the product of a soul connection, and I hope Braff and Pugh get another chance to work together.
Even as the film’s plot tips slightly overdramatic, it hits on something that feels very true, especially for viewers who have experience with addicts.
I cried for about 30 minutes sitting in the theater after this film ended. My girlfriend was genuinely worried about me. It is the perfect film, and the pinnacle of its subject matter.
IN A NUTSHELL:
I’ve been a fan of Zach Braff ever since I first saw him acting in Scrubs. I’m so excited for him because he wrote, produced, and directed this movie! Kudos to a job well done!
So, what does it mean to be a good person? The story focuses on a young woman who was in a terrible car accident that killed two people. We watch her try to recover physically and emotionally as she grapples with how to become a good person and tries to put all of the pieces together of the **** lives around her.
THINGS I LIKED:
This movie had me at Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman. They’re both fantastic in this.
Florence knocks it out of the park as she does in every movie she’s in. We even get to hear her sing in this movie quite a bit. I’m such a fan. I recently learned that she and director/writer Zach Braff dated for 3 years. Clearly, he knew she had the talent to pull off this tough role.
I was worried this was going to be another one of those Morgan Freeman movies where he’s hardly in any scenes as a quick payday, so I was happily surprised by his large role in the film. Yay! He’s a national treasure.
The rest of the cast crushes it too: Zoe Lister-Jones, Molly Shannon, Celeste O’Connor, Chinaza Uche, Nichelle Hines, and Toby Onwumere.
The camera lingers on moments for just the right amount of time.
Shout-out to “Find My Phone” app.
You WILL cry. Be prepared with lots of tissues.
THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:
The movie is too long to say what it needs to say. I was exhausted by the end. I can only take so much heartache.
The content is rough. I don’t enjoy watching people live their lives in the gutter.
TIPS FOR PARENTS:
Kids will be bored since it’s one of those “adult-talking” movies
Adults buy, sell, and take drugs.
An older man tries to sleep with an underage girl twice.
Alcohol
Profanity and soooo many F-bombs
Bi-racial couple
You have to read some texts on the screen.
A Good Person seems to belong to a uniquely Dan Fogelman-esque subgenre of hyper sincere melodrama that sometimes clicks (“This Is Us”) and other times does not (“Life Itself”). Braff’s film is worlds better than “Life Itself,” but there are some similarities in how it strives for cosmic significance and ultimate tearjerking within a construct that the film tries to sell as authentically specific. In execution, it’s a bit more strained and contrived.
Braff is going for something broader than indie naturalism, so perhaps the film calls for less subtle brushstrokes. But the result is something that rings with far less thoughtfulness than he’s clearly capable of (particularly in light of the opioid crisis that the film mentions), despite Pugh’s remarkable attempts to ground the story.
Though Pugh valiantly muscles through the melancholy beats of Braff’s melodrama, there are too many other characters and plot threads to allow her to do much besides heave the story forward.
It is as if Pugh is having to push her way through narrative waters that threaten to wash away her performance. No matter how she continues to rise to the challenge, the film’s cascading of contrivances drown her out.
Braff puts us through a gruelling “relapse” montage as Allison hits the pills again after an illusory breakthrough and then a “recovery” montage as she gets it together. And the film’s single valuable lesson – the one about not looking at your phone while driving – is all but forgotten.
O tom do filme é sempre visando chamar a atenção para solidificar um drama, e tendo-o visto após o excelente e terno "Living", fica a sensação de que o tom acima da média mais prejudica do que ajuda.
Ainda assim, há aqui um roteiro poderoso sobre um trauma proveniente de um acidente de carro, que desencadeou o rompimento de um relacionamento e uma Florence Pugh jogado ao vício de remédios.
Por mais que as cenas estão um tanto higienizadas, são boas o bastante para nos importarmos com a dependência química da protagonista. Aliás, o protagonismo aqui meio que soou prejudicado, e a gente percebe que é um enlatado quando o roteiro mesmo não se decide entre focar em Morgan Freeman ou na Pugh, uma brilha de estrelas que ressoou na composição final da obra.
Afinal, "a good person" é uma fala do Freeman ao qualificar-se a si mesmo em um momento em que ele quase cometera uma loucura. É um drama que explora a consequência e dificuldade em manter os laços seja pelo trauma onde sobram culpas e responsabilidades pesadas, seja pelo tema da droga presente. Há também um leve passeio sobre a garota órfã e seus dramas.
Com uma salada de sentimentos, ao menos o elenco garante com muita competência aquilo que o roteiro quase sabota, ou seja, tornar visceral tudo o que é posto em tela.
Com um excesso desmedido, as atuações, mesmo a de Freeman, vão cortando as arestas, por amis que os diálogos seja ruins as vezes, eles entregam personagens convincentes o suficiente. O monólogo do Freeman e o olhar de viciada da Pugh são aterrorizantes.
A abordagem então pode despertar uma onda de gatilhos, e o final good vibes está aí para o bem ou para o mal, afinal, o filme até tenta mas não sai da média genérica para o gênero, ainda que as atuações de fato estejam acima.
The chemistry between Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman is the best thing about this movie about addiction, loss, and how to recover from both by accepting help from others.
Pugh does not disappoint as a woman whose life falls apart after a terrible accident, and she certainly manages to get into the role physically and emotionally. It's also nice to see Freeman in an interesting one after a long time, and most surprising of all, he makes it look all too easy.
Zach Braff, who enamored independent film lovers with 'Garden State' a long time ago, delivers a decent film in which the performances are the best part. The script, unfortunately, doesn't live up every time. Although the first two acts navigate the delicate territory of representing an existence as an addict well, the third reaches exaggerated, predictable, and somewhat problematic levels, leaving the exploration of the topic on a superficial level.
And although the story overstays its welcome, the team that Pugh and Freeman make allows you to get to the end.
(Mauro Lanari)
With some frequency, films with a lenitive intent come out, which seek to replace oxycodone with a support similar to that provided by AMA groups or rehab centers. More rarely they don't get stuck in the shallows of authoriality or blackmail. During the Covid period Zach Braff began to write, direct and act with his then girlfriend Florence Pugh a drama that can be of relief for those who are experiencing pain, suffering, mourning. It takes skill and he proves that he has it.
Zach Braff made a film almost two decades ago that gave him some credit in indie circles. A credit that has worked for him so far.
I never thought much of Garden State, but that's really the least of it, the issue here is that Braff even with two more films on his resume as a director seems to have learned very few lessons and that's reflected in his weathered conventionalism.
A Good Person isn't a parade of clichés, but rather a ritual of familiar symptoms to which he cannot imprint an identity that would evoke the key points of a drama of this kind, which are honesty and empathy.
If it fails to connect the audience with emotions, it will hardly achieve anything. Even when the audience knows in advance that you are manipulating them to do so.
Florence Pugh has the talent to move the material forward, and while that doesn't save the whole project for her former partner, it does at least provide him with two important things.
One that the film won't die in obscurity and two that the experience will not be too disappointing.
Beyond that, you're not missing out on anything particularly valuable.