Earlier this year, Saban Films picked up the North American distribution rights to the Norwegian thriller Good Boy. Now it has been announced that they’ll be giving the film a theatrical, digital, and VOD release on September 8th – and with that date swiftly approaching, a trailer has arrived online! You can check it out in the embed above.
Good Boy (previously known as Me, You & Frank), was written and directed by Viljar Bøe, who made his feature debut with the 2020 thriller Til Freddy. This one has the following synopsis: Sigrid thinks she’s met her perfect match with the charming and handsome Christian, but there is one catch- he lives with a man who acts like his pet dog. Trying to be open-minded, Sigrid continues the relationship but soon notices an insidious under-tone to Christian. Maybe ‘puppy play’ isn’t as innocent as it seems.
The film stars Gard Løkke, Katrine Lovise Øpstad Fredriksen, and Amalie Willoch Njaastad. Nicolai Narvesen Lied plays Frank the dog, although for most of the shots of the person in the dog costume the character is being portrayed by costume designer Marie Waade Grønning.
While the set-up of a man living with another man who’s made up to look like an animal brings to mind the Kevin Smith walrus movie Tusk and the faux lodger ad that inspired it, Bøe told Eye for Film that his movie was very much inspired by Takashi Miike’s Audition and “the way it plays with genres. I wanted to make something that felt like a genuinely romantic film. In Audition, it’s pretty obvious that it will turn into something else. It flips back and forth between genres. But we were inspired in that way, and we wanted to make something that at the start felt like a genuine romantic film but turned into something else the more we progressed through the story.“
What did you think of the Good Boy trailer? Does this look like a thriller you would like to watch? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
I haven’t seen Til Freddy, but seeing the Good Boy trailer and reading about the making of the film has me interested in not only watching this movie, but Viljar Bøe’s previous work as well.