A Good Person: Dramatic irony

A Good Person (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity, drug use and sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.24.23

I cannot imagine the mental and emotional anguish of survivor’s guilt.

 

But Florence Pugh certainly conveys it persuasively, in this three-hanky melodrama.

 

Allie (Florence Pugh) is genuinely touched when Daniel (Morgan Freeman) shares his
model railroad depiction of their New Jersey community.

Writer/director Zach Braff’s film runs a bit too long, and he arguably lards the third act with one reckless transgression too many. That said, viewers may be inclined to forgive that excess, given the strong performances which take us to that point.

Following a quiet overview of a marvelously detailed basement toy train layout, accompanied by Morgan Freeman’s thoughtful voice-over, the story opens on a cheerfully rowdy pre-wedding gathering. Everybody has had a bit too much to drink — or smoke — while singer/songwriter Allison (Pugh) gamely performs one of her tunes on piano.

 

After the guests disperse, she and fiancé Nathan (Chinaza Uche) enjoy some quality quiet time, displaying the flirty, playfully sexy nature of their relationship.

 

(At which point, I glanced at Constant Companion — both of us having watched far too many movies, and therefore feeling that we’re being set up for some sort of catastrophe — and muttered, “Okay, when’s the penny gonna drop?”)

 

The following morning, Allie — as she prefers to be called — Nathan’s sister Molly (Nichelle Hines) and her husband leave their New Jersey neighborhood, intending to spend the day in Manhattan: trying on dresses, then taking in a play. As it’s a school day, their teenage daughter, Ryan (Celeste O’Connor), has been left behind with her grandfather, Daniel (Freeman).

 

The car chatter is lively; Allie’s eyes — she’s driving — keep straying from the freeway. She then worsens the situation by pulling out her phone, to check a map reference.

 

What happens next occurs very quickly. Braff, bless him, cuts to sharp black.

 

Our first glimpse of Braff’s delicate touch with deeply emotional scenes — and dialogue — comes next. Daniel, in the process of dropping Ryan off at school, gets The Phone Call. Freeman plays the scene wholly by the reaction in his gaze; we don’t hear the other end of the conversation. Then, the call concluded — sinking further into shock by the second — Daniel encourages Ryan to have a good day at school.

 

He gives the girl those precious few more hours of “normal,” before her life is ripped apart.

 

Allie, badly injured, wakens in a hospital bed. Nathan and her mother, Diane (Molly Shannon), are present. A police officer enters the room; chaos ensues.

 

Molly and her husband died in the crash; Allie survived.

Lola Versus: Undone by a bogus script

Lola Versus (2012) • View trailer
Three stars. Rating: R, for profanity, sexual candor and drug use
By Derrick Bang

Lola (Greta Gerwig) wanders aimlessly during the year following her 29th birthday, her fickle and frequently self-destructive behavior often destroying any good will she establishes during brief flashes of actual maturity.

When best friend Alice (Zoe Lister-Jones, left) encourages Lola (Greta
Gerwig) to jump back into the dating pool, the waters suddenly seem
full of sharks and minnows ... neither of which is good news for a
mildly desperate woman on the rebound.

The same can be said of the film she inhabits.

Lola Versus opens with promise, but rapidly devolves into an overly talky quagmire that feels (and sounds) like a bad Woody Allen film. Co-scripters Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein introduce Lola as a self-assured and obviously intelligent woman — not everybody has the smarts to be inches away from a Ph.D. — but then subject her to an escalating series of bad decisions and stupid choices, not to mention enough drug and alcohol binging to send the next half-dozen people into rehab.

In short, it becomes impossible to retain our sympathy for Lola, despite Gerwig’s heroic effort to showcase her character’s quirky charm.

Then, too, the dialogue exchanges concocted by Lister-Jones and Wein are too arch, too contrived, too knowingly earthy and too faux trendy. Granted, nobody in real life talks like the folks on the big screen, but — best-case scenario — we viewers at least can delight in witty, sophisticated banter when it’s delivered with well-timed snap. Too much of the conversational chatter here is ostentatiously smutty, as if Lister-Jones and Wein are taking their cues from the gals in Sex and the City.

Sorry, but talking like Kim Cattrall’s Samantha is not the height of chic refinement. Not even close.

We meet Lola on her aforementioned 29th birthday, an event celebrated in the arms of longtime boyfriend Luke (Joel Kinnaman), who climaxes the milestone by proposing. Cue several weeks (months?) of excited wedding planning, with some decisions second-guessed by Lola’s fashionably cool parents, Robin and Lenny (Debra Winger and Bill Pullman).

Pullman is a hoot: one of the film’s stronger elements, actually, and I wish we could have spent more time with him. Lenny is recently retired and loving this opportunity to hang loose and embrace social media and all the other “with it” joys of the early 21st century; he and Lola also enjoy a frank and loving relationship.

Winger’s Robin is perhaps somewhat controlling, but Lola is strong enough — and savvy enough — to maintain the necessary barriers.