Movie Review: 'A Good Person'

A Good Person (2023)

Directed by Zach Braff

Written by Zach Braff

Starring Florence Pugh, Morgan Freeman, Molly Shannon, Zoe Lister-Jones, Chinaza Uche

Release Date March 31st, 2023

Published April 4th, 2023

You can only numb emotional pain for so long before the numbness becomes the desired effect. Life becomes stagnant, the outside world is a place of judgment, a place to fear. Being numb and at home is the desired space in the world. But, to quote a terrific song called Sideways by Citizen Cope and Santana, lyrics that have never left me since I heard them on an episode of Scrubs, 'These feelings won't go away.' Until you actually confront your emotional damage, it will not heal, it will only fester.

Allison (Florence Pugh), the protagonist of the new drama, A Good Person, is in the midst of learning this lyrical lesson in A Good Person. Following an accident that killed her soon to be sister and brother in-laws, Allison turned to Oxycontin, first as a way of dealing with physical pain and then as a way to numb the emotional pain of guilt that she felt every time she looked into the eyes of her fiancé, Nathan (Chinaza Uche). These feelings of guilt linger and fester within her, even after she abandoned Nathan for the comfort of moving home to her mother, Diane (Molly Shannon) who proves to be an unwilling enabler of her daughter's addiction.

Eventually, this unhealed wound drives Allison to depths that even she recognizes as wrong and she seeks help. There, with much unexpected irony, she meets Daniel (Morgan Freeman), her former future father-in-law and father of the woman who died in the accident Allison caused by carelessly looking at her phone while driving. You might expect Daniel to lash out but, to Allison's great surprise, the elderly father reaches out a hand and invites her to stay and get help as part of the AA/NA Meeting at their shared local church.

The tentative friendship between Allison and Daniel that develops via their attending these meetings, drives the action of the second act of A Good Person as Allison is introduced to the teenage daughter that was left orphaned in the care of her grandfather. Ryan (Celeste O'Connor), at first, is shocked and mortified that Daniel would bring Allison into their lives, considering the circumstances, but eventually, she begins to befriend Allison. The friendship is fraught, quite obviously, but when Ryan tries to reunite Allison with Nathan, things go beyond fraught to a place a deep despair.

One thing that Zach Braff does well as a writer and director is explore complicated emotions and give those emotions room to breathe. Garden State was anchored by an exploration of grief and the healing power of falling in love with someone who understands you. He explored a remarkably similar theme in the equally effective, Wish I Was Here. And, once again, in A Good Person, Braff is back to exploring grief from yet another perspective and once again he allows room for this complicated emotion to be lived in, explored, and for it to begin to heal.

His themes may be similar but Braff is at his best when he stops and lets the anguish that his characters are feeling be fully expressed. The catharsis of big emotions can be a tad manipulative in a film drama but in Braff's conception, and in the performances of actors such as Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman, it never feels pushy. Pugh's performance in particular is so charismatic that it leaves an indelible, unforgettable impression. Say what you will about the sameness of Zach Braff's direction, in the hands of great actors, it barely registers.

I do have a few criticisms of Braff's direction. One big one is how indistinct his direction has become as he's grown up. Where Garden State was divisively stylish and distinct, subsequent films have become safer, more market tested and less visually interesting. It seems he may have taken the criticism of his directorial aesthetic to heart following Garden State and has tried to tone things down. Sadly, for me, he went too far and A Good Person suffers from a rather bland design and direction that robs the movie of some of its power.

A Good Person could have also benefited from another edit on the screenplay. The film is a little flabby and could have been trimmed a little here and there. At times, scenes seem to exist to inform the audience rather than to provide needed information between the characters. That's the kind of underlining and talking down to the audience that can take people out of a movie. When the audience response is 'yeah, we know this already,' you're losing them. A Good Person invites that response one too many times.

That said, for me, neither of these flaws are fatal. I still found A Good Person to be quite a good movie. Florence Pugh is tremendous and continues to show that she can play any character and make them uniquely charismatic. She's well paired with Morgan Freeman and a strong supporting cast that also includes the brilliant Zoe Lister Jones whom I wish had been given more to do. She's brilliant and a great filmmaker in her own right. Based on this incredible cast and a director patient enough to allow emotions to build and linger, A Good Person is a movie I can quite easily recommend.

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