172. A Good Person; movie review

 

A GOOD PERSON

Cert 15

129 mins

BBFC advice: Contains strong language, drug misuse, domestic abuse references

You can't beat a Morgan Freeman narration - even if it is the prelude to a movie as tough as A Good Person.

Freeman and Florence Pugh are a high-quality double act in a film about tragedy, addiction and redemption.

He plays the elderly father of a daughter and son-in-law killed in a car crash.

She plays Allison - the young woman (Pugh) who was driving and had been due to marry his son (Chinaza Uche).

Zach Braff's film then moves on a year and finds Allison in a bad way, living at home with her mum (Molly Shannon) and hooked on painkillers.

A Good Person is an examination of addiction and those who are left in the wake of horror.

Freeman's character, Daniel, has the responsibility of caring for his 16-year-old orphaned grand-daughter (Celeste O'Connor) and is becoming more and more out of his depth.

The latter has to deal with the usual traumas of teenage life combined with losing her parents.

These key characters have to negotiate the darkest of tunnels and, despite sporadic light, it sometimes seems as if they will never emerge.

However, the clue is in the title and good people never give up.

Braff's film is not an easy watch but it is definitely worth a couple of hours to see one of the greatest veteran actors alive today in good form.

But while Freeman is the foundation on which the movie is based, the eye-catcher is Pugh. She is rapidly becoming one of the world's most impressive actresses and proves the point here.

Reasons to watch: Star turns from Freeman and Pugh

Reasons to avoid: Tough subject matter

Laughs: None

Jumps: None

Vomit: Yes

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 7.5/10

Did you know? Data reported in the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse indicate that an estimated 36 million U.S. residents aged 12 and older abused prescription drugs at least once in their lifetime.

The final word. Zach Braff: "I got in touch with someone who runs a recovery centre who answered a lot of my questions and then he put us in touch with a woman who not only had recovered from an opioid addiction but was now helping other young women. She not only was our on-set person but she really sat with Florence and advised her on the feelings of withdrawal, the feelings of trying to go cold turkey and really coached Florence on what would the accurate feelings be and that was just invaluable." Moviefone

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