Good Grief movie review: Sensitive but superficial, Dan Levy’s dissatisfying drama is standard Netflix fare – The Indian Express
There’s a skinny line between self-awareness and self-satisfaction, and writer-director Dan Levy’s debut function, Good Grief, isn’t capable of straddle it. Whereas consciousness is an indication of emotional maturity, being smug about it’s maybe essentially the most immature factor that an individual can do. So, when a personality in Good Grief makes an off-handed remark a couple of fictional film in an early scene, describing it as ‘cloying however well-intentioned’, you may’t assist however marvel if that’s Levy along with his guard up, pre-empting a few of the criticism that may very well be lobbed within the course of his movie, which is out now on Netflix.
It’s a weepy a couple of 30-something who experiences a horrible loss, after which goes to Paris to course of it. Levy stars as Marc, whose husband Oliver — a famed author whose books are sometimes became blockbuster movies — dies tragically in a automotive accident within the movie’s opening scene. After hard-cutting to a tragicomic title card, nevertheless, Good Grief jumps ahead by a yr, and dishes out some extra dangerous information to a still-grieving Marc. It’s the form of dangerous information that fully alters his notion of his late husband, and compels him to make an impromptu worldwide journey.
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He invitations his two finest associates, the bohemian Sophie (performed by Ruth Negga in a jaw-droppingly unusual efficiency) and his once-lover Thomas (Himesh Patel, who appears to have been beamed in from a completely completely different movie altogether), to hitch him on the journey. As a result of each Sophie and Thomas are going by means of private difficulties as properly, they eagerly agree. However their dedication to getting Marc again on his toes is at all times the precedence, and the film makes this abundantly clear. Marc, nevertheless, is totally conscious that his associates can’t preserve invalidating their very own crises to assist him by means of his.
Daniel Levy (author/director/producer) stars as Marc in Good Grief. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023.
However as somebody who willingly labels himself an ‘orphan and a widower’, it is smart that Marc turns to his discovered household in his time of want. And it’s good to see somebody with a secure assist system round them. However due to Levy’s willpower to take care of a sure rosiness — the film primarily takes place in two of essentially the most prosperous and lovely places on the planet — as a viewer, you’re made to leap over an additional impediment in your strategy to growing empathy for Marc and his buddies. The film isn’t actually desirous about highlighting the merciless irony of being so depressing in fairly locations. Nor does it appear desirous about investigating how unhappiness is usually a wholly completely different expertise while you’re rich and privileged, as a result of solely Zoya Akhtar‘s detractors would assume that unhappiness is restricted to the unlucky.
There’s a near-constant dissonance within the form of primal feelings that Good Grief is trying to unpack and the devotion to style aesthetics that it’s completely incapable of ignoring. Marc doesn’t, as an example, want to fret about revenue; he can afford to spend a yr doing yoga and lingering at artwork exhibitions and being hit on by suave Frenchmen. All of this, thoughts you, occurs earlier than he jets off to Paris.
Daniel Levy (author/director/producer) stars as Marc in Good Grief. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023.
It doesn’t assist that Marc speaks not like a human being, however completely in aphorisms. “To keep away from unhappiness is to keep away from love,” he says in a single scene. And in a scene earlier than that, Levy the filmmaker deems match to have a personality bodily rise up from their seat, stroll over to a gramophone, and play Neil Younger’s “Solely Love Can Break Your Coronary heart” earlier than an emotionally charged interplay. It’s nearly as if she couldn’t have proceeded with out the best soundtrack. It could’ve been overly saccharine even when he’d restricted the music to being a background needle-drop, however to underline it on this style is probably emblematic of Good Grief as a complete, and of Levy’s cautious sensibilities as a filmmaker.
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Too good-natured to actively dislike however too slight to warrant a full-throated suggestion, Good Grief is barely marginally extra refined than the kind of schmaltz that Netflix releases on a weekly foundation, particularly presently of the yr. The performing is in all places, the doe-eyed angle is a bit overbearing, however the film has its coronary heart in the correct place, and extra beautiful garments on show than you’d discover on a Milanese runway. It’s the cinematic equal of an detached shrug.
Good Grief
Director – Dan Levy
Solid – Dan Levy, Himesh Patel, Ruth Negga, Luke Evans
Score – 2/5
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