A Good Person: A Sad Story – Movie Review

A Good Person is a new American drama film directed and produced by Zach Braff. It revolves around grief-stricken Allison (Florence Pugh) as she is trying to recover from an accident. She finds an interesting and unlikely friendship with Daniel (Morgan Freeman), also going through tough times. The two come together about forgiveness, family, and fighting addiction.

Releasing this March 24^th, this drama is rated R because it includes graphic topics covered, though there are moments of comic relief throughout the movie. Having not heard about this movie or read any write-up, I did not expect what I witnessed. Even with the title, A Good Person, I felt I was in for a different ride than I was…

We are almost immediately thrown into massive amounts of grief and tragedy. The story mainly follows this young woman’s life and how she ends up running into an old friend, one could say, and how their stories connect/overlap with one another’s. Major trigger warning for this film: it surrounds the life of addiction, from pills to alcohol, with nothing light or funny about it.

With this lineup of actors, I was excited to see their performance. Honestly, they did a great job. The acting overall was good and felt real throughout the film, which was nothing less than my expectations from these acclaimed actors. Even down to the side characters, I thought the performance was nicely done.

Having said that, though the actors may have done a fine job with what they were given, other than that, there was not a tone to work with. This storyline and plot felt redundant during the middle of the movie. I thought we were going in circles as an audience and never getting closer to the ending. The storyline felt straightforward, with nothing super exciting aside from the beginning. To me, it was depressing to watch this story. I can understand that these things happen in real life, and showing them in a film gives them a stage for people to talk about, but I do not want to sit through a two-hour movie about the sadness of it all. I felt trepidatious while watching it; some parts do not necessarily want to see. It was not a pretty film, I will say that much.

For costumes, Florence Pugh’s character, Allison, dressed in the ugliest outfits I have ever seen. I think that this formed her character, and the audience gained a lot about her personality through this, but they were so bad they almost took away from the scenes at times. It mainly consisted of oversized or cut band t-shirts paired with brightly colored ugly sweaters, which were unnecessary.

As for scenery, the outside shots were nice to see, though filled with characters sad outfits. We, as an audience, moved through the year and got some nice looks at parks, tree-lined streets, and cityscapes. It was an excellent shot film, I will give it that, but the content found within it made it upsetting to watch. Bedrooms and other settings were nicely decorated and fit well too. Some fantastic shots were also mixed in, so this film’s cinematography was well done.

I think that people can get a good message from the ending of this film, but I felt there could have been a different way to come to this conclusion. The topic would be subject to an older audience because of the heaviness of this and tons of drug and alcohol abuse.

I wanted to like this film, and I did, but as much as I tried, that feeling after it ended was not good. Walking out of the theater made me uneasy because of the realistic portrayal of such a depressing story. But, I understand this can happen, and that is what makes it stick.

It’s true; this movie sticks, so in a sense, it did its job by getting across an important message; but honestly, it did not make me feel good.

I give this movie 2.5 stars out of 5.

This movie is a lot to take in, lasting for over two hours. Overall, it was a nicely shot film with good acting; apart from that, it was hard to watch with a much more tense tone than I expected or wanted from this film. I would not recommend this if you are looking for a light movie or one to watch on a free night. The message lingers after the film and personally impacts feelings the following day because of its heavy and depressing portrayal.