A Good Person
Two of the best actors on the planet – Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman – bring a taste of brutal humanity to Zach Braff’s scorchingly personal tragedy.
After the event: Florence Pugh
Allison is more than just a good person. She’s bright, warm and funny, she sings and plays the piano, and she has a bedroom festooned with ribbons and medals attesting to her former glory as an award-winning swimmer. We first meet Allison at her engagement party to Nathan (Chinaza Uche), where she’s serenading the guests with a self-penned ballad. But tragedy has no agenda and can strike at any time and it can change a person forever…
A Good Person, the third film written and directed by Zach Braff, is a co-production with Braff’s then-girlfriend Florence Pugh, who plays Allison. It’s quite the parting gift, as it provides Pugh with the tools to turn in her most naked, honest and staggeringly genuine performance to date, to cap an already extraordinary career. Equally, it’s a gift from Pugh to Braff, the actress giving her director the pulse and lifeblood of his material. Such cinematic symbiosis is a rare thing indeed.
A less obvious paragon of virtue and achievement is Daniel, a former cop and Vietnam vet who is a black sheep in Nathan’s family. But he has his own ghosts, and in the hands of Braff’s even-handed, fiercely observant screenplay he is every bit as nuanced and human as Allison – and could be the safety net she needs. And played by Morgan Freeman, he is a figure we immediately sympathise with. So, the film’s ace card is the presence of two of the world’s best actors occupying the same space, at opposite ends of their respective careers. To watch them mine the truth and pain of their characters is a privilege for any student of great acting.
Setting the scene in his native New Jersey, Braff brings a real authenticity to his film, augmented by the pitch-perfect performances of a superlative cast. As Nathan, the Edinburgh-born Chinaza Uche brings an understated munificence to another good person, a man struggling to comprehend the misdeeds of his fiancé and his own father. And as his alienated daughter, the 16-year-old Ryan, Celeste O'Connor is another marvel, while Zoe Lister-Jones is faultless in the secondary role of a woman who has surmounted her own demons.
It is no coincidence that many of the best films about the human condition have been directed by actors, and Braff is a hugely successful performer in his own right. One need look no further than Todd Field’s Tár, Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast or even Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman, to get the point. Actors know how actors work – and actors are the emotional bloodstream of drama. One hopes that Braff’s perceptive insights into grief are not drawn from real life, but his vision is too spot-on for this not to be the case. Indeed, he has suffered inordinate loss in the last few years and has channelled his anguish into this devastating contemplation of despondency and recovery. He even shares a tattoo on his forearm – the words amor fati, the Latin for “to love one’s fate” – with Morgan Freeman’s Daniel. This is personal stuff, and it shows.
The prologue is a trick. There is something conventional, even vaguely syrupy about it, but after the belated title card, Braff strips away the music. Wisely, he has let Pugh take centre stage, devoid of make-up, reaching into the pit that makes Allison “blissfully numb.” Pugh is sensational. And the film, at times, is terrifying. Life can be this unforgiving and unexpected, and Braff sees no reason to sugar-coat it. But the kindness of strangers makes it bearable. Against the odds, there can always be hope – we just don’t know how it will arrive.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Florence Pugh, Morgan Freeman, Molly Shannon, Chinaza Uche, Celeste O'Connor, Zoe Lister-Jones, Nichelle Hines, Toby Onwumere, Ignacio Diaz-Silverio, Oli Green, Alex Wolff, Victor Cruz, Brian Rojas, Ryann Redmond, Sydney Morton.
Dir Zach Braff, Pro Zach Braff, Pamela Koffler, Florence Pugh, Christine Vachon, Christina Piovesan and Noah Segal, Screenplay Zach Braff, Ph Mauro Fiore, Pro Des Merissa Lombardo, Ed Dan Schalk, Music Bryce Dessner, Costumes Tere Duncan.
Killer Films/Elevation Pictures-Sky Cinema.
128 mins. USA/Canada. 2022. UK and US Rel: 24 March 2023. Cert. 15.
