A Good Person Review

Last Updated on March 28, 2023

PLOT: Allison (Florence Pugh) seems to have everything going for her. She has a well-paying job as a pharma-rep, is on a clear, upwardly mobile path and is newly engaged to a fiancee (Chinaza Uche) she adores. But, a split-second error leads to the deaths of her future sister and brother-in-law, leaving her permanently estranged from her now ex-fiancee and with a crippling opioid addiction to boot. When she manages to drag herself to an AA meeting, she makes an unlikely connection with her ex’s father (Morgan Freeman), himself a recovering addict who can’t help but blame Allison for the death of his daughter.

REVIEW: Zach Braff has become an easy target for critics recently, and I don’t understand why. In 2004 everyone thought he was a genius when Garden State became a cult sensation. However, in the years that followed, the film was suddenly retroactively condemned as cheese. This is more likely due to the fact that Garden State was followed by dozens and dozens of clones, many of which were quite bad, and the things people say are cliches from that movie (such as the now infamous manic pixie dream girl archetype) weren’t cliches when the movie came out. As such, A Good Person has been slammed by many early reviews, with a lot of critics trying to outdo themselves in snark, but here’s the thing – it’s actually a decent flick. Braff is anything but cynical, and the film is achingly sincere. Yet, it can’t help but be a moving exploration of grief, addiction and personal responsibility, and it’s grounded by a performance by Florence Pugh that’s too good to be dismissed.

This was clearly a passion project for both her and Braff (who were together throughout the production), and with her star on the rise, it’ll be a shame if her work here gets overlooked. If the manic pixie dream girl archetype is what people want to associate Braff with, he does his best to subvert this expectation with Pugh here. She’s all too human as Allison, who succumbs to opioid addiction to ease the guilt she can’t quite bring herself to acknowledge. Early in the movie, we see that the tragic accident she was involved in is at least partially her fault, but as a defensive mechanism, she constantly passes the buck on the blame.

To A Good Person‘s credit, we get why she feels this way. While the accident itself is bad enough, the fallout is just as bad, with her brother and sister-in-law leaving behind a troubled daughter (Celeste O’Connor), who’s now become the responsibility of her ancient but still formidable grandfather (Morgan Freeman). For the eighty-something Freeman, this is his best role in a while. He typically plays loving grandfatherly types, but there’s a real edge to him here, with his Daniel being a formerly abusive father who once beat his son so severely when drunk that he left him permanently deaf in one ear. It’s the fact that he’s angry and flawed which allows him to have some measure of sympathy for Pugh’s Allison, and their relationship never goes down the cutesy, schmaltzy route you’d think had you watched the trailer. There’s more of an edge to it, with Allison and Daniel never genuinely getting over their prickly, understandable distrust of each other.

A Good Person also does a good job examining how the opioid epidemic has ravaged much of the country, including Braff’s own beloved New Jersey. The film is peppered with characters that feel like they could have been straight out of his own Garden State twenty years ago, but the twist is these formerly charming reprobates have become full-on junkies with a bitter, predatory edge. This is well-evoked by a terrific scene (with a scene stealing Alex Wolff) where Pugh tries to white-knuckle her way through a chance encounter with some old high school acquaintances, who’ve now become junkies, and who she must admit – she’s no better than. There’s also a terrific confrontation between Pugh and Molly Shannon, who plays her mother, that’s pretty strong, where the mom tries the tough love approach only for things to go awry. It’s a domestic scene I imagine many people with family members in the grip of addiction can relate to. Braff also gives the soundtrack his usual care, with Pugh herself demonstrating a strong singing voice on two tracks.

If A Good Person has any major failing, Braff, due to his good intentions, can’t help but end the film in a way that ties things up too neatly. It’s a feel-good ending that the movie doesn’t entirely earn, but that’s simply Braff’s style. He wants you to leave the theater feeling optimistic, but it ties too neat of a bow on what, up to this point, had been a pretty strong drama. Nevertheless, it’s at least Braff’s best work since Garden State (which I still like – haters be damned) and proof there’s a lot more to him than people think.

A Good Person

GOOD

7

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