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A Good Person begins with an engagement party for Allison (Florence Pugh – Don’t Worry Darling) and Nathan (Chinaza Uche – Dickinson), followed by plans to move to the big city, but a freak car accident puts the former in hospital, with a concussion, and more bad news to be delivered, along with it putting an immense amount of strain on their relationships.
As such, Allison has rather a meltdown, cutting her own hair short, and she’s developed an unhealthy addiction to painkillers.
Meanwhile, Daniel’s (Morgan Freeman – The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard) feisty granddaughter, Ryan (Celeste O’Connor – Ghostbusters Afterlife), quits her football team, and is about to get expelled from school unless she gets her life together, but she has specific issues to deal with, which I don’t want to spoil here.
With Allison’s drug addiction, and Daniel’s former life on the booze, the pair of them meet where they go to deal with their demons, but despite Pugh being fine, and Freeman still being on top form at the tender, young age of just 85, A Good Person‘s problem is that events rather slow down when the two meet, and the film turns into more of a soap opera, even though they have connections that they didn’t initially expect.
The only thing that mostly sticks in the mind comes when Florence, after slicking her short hair back, dresses in a trouser suit, and looks insanely hot.
In 2004’s Garden State, writer/director Zach Braff‘s character, Andrew, was also taking a lot of pills, albeit ones he was prescribed, rather than taking them illicitly. I haven’t seen two of his other films – 2014’s Wish I Was Here, or 2008’s Night Life, but I get the connection between this new one and the 2004 movie. I did see 2017’s Going In Style, also with Morgan Freeman, but it came across as just knockabout junk and the Hollywood equivalent of fast food, eaten quickly and then making you sick, afterwards.
One plus is that, like Garden State, various indie tunes are thrown in to the soundtrack, rather than well-known songs.
Overall, for A Good Person, I can see what Braff’s trying to do with bringing out decent performances in most of his cast, but at 125 minutes it’s way too long, and after the first act, it slows right down and was pretty dull and preditable.
Thanks to our friends at Sky for the screener prior to release.
A Good Person is in cinemas now, and then on Sky Cinema from Friday April 28th, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 123 minutes
Release date: March 24th 2023
Studio: Sky Cinema
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 (ARRIRAW (4.5K))
Rating: 4/10
Director: Zach Braff
Producers: Zach Braff, Pamela Koffler, Christina Piovesan, Florence Pugh, Noah Segal, Christine Vachon
Screenplay: Zach Braff
Music: Bryce Dessner
Cast:
Allison: Florence Pugh
Daniel: Morgan Freeman
Ryan: Celeste O’Connor
Diane: Molly Shannon
Nathan: Chinaza Uche
Simone: Zoe Lister-Jones
Molly: Nichelle Hines
Jesse: Toby Onwumere
Quinn: Ignacio Diaz-Silverio
Thomas: Oli Green
Mark: Alex Wolff
Diego: Brian Rojas
Becka: Ryann Redmond
Joelle: Sydney Morton
State Trooper: Mike Menendez
Chip: Adam ‘Chip’ Hamilton
Max: Drew Gehling
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.