In Good Grief, it’s Christmas time and married couple, Marcus and Oliver are throwing a party for all their friends. Marcus has spent a considerable amount of time organising the event, but it’s a shindig that Oliver will only briefly enjoy.
Oliver is an author and in the morning he has a book signing in Paris. As such, during the course of the evening he has to step away from the party in London and head to the airport.
After hopping into a taxi, Oliver sets off on his journey. But mere meters away from their home, there’s an accident and Oliver is killed.
A year later, Marcus attempts to put his life back together following Oliver’s death. He has to find a way to move forward, while coping with his ongoing grief and dealing with some unresolved issues from his relationship.
Written, directed, co-produced, and starring Daniel Levy, Good Grief is an LGBTQ+ drama-comedy about love and loss. The movie stars Ruth Negga, Himesh Patel, Celia Imrie, David Bradley, and Luke Evans, and following a brief theatrical run in the US in December, it is available to stream on Netflix from today.
Should you stream it? Maybe, depending on how you’re feeling emotionally.
Due to the nature of the movie, as well as the tone this film adopts, Good Grief is a fairly melancholic picture and a generally quite sombre experience. If you’re not having a great time right now, for whatever reason, you may not want to immerse yourself in 100-minutes of a fairly downbeat story.
The film is also a bit of a mixed bag. While Good Grief does have some decent moments, and highlights plenty of potential, it doesn’t quite catch.
Writer/director Dan Levy manages to convey the sense of sadness which comes with a death, and he’s strong in the lead role of Marcus, but the film feels a trifle undercooked. As such, there’s not enough to latch onto, it’s never as interesting as it wants to be, and for the most part it’s all very depressing stuff.
Where Good Grief shines brightest is in some of the dialogue, with a few of the conversations and exchanges containing the odd nuggets of gold. Levy has a way with words, and when the movie needs to hit the right beats to highlight the emotional impact of a loss, he knows what to say.
He also manages to create a fairly strong bond between Marcus and his two best friends, Thomas and Sophie. These three characters form the central trio of the picture, becoming the focus of the movie, and they work well together.
But outside of the above, the rest of the picture is average at best. It’s never bad, but it’s not all that great either.
Ironically, it’s also a bit too sad for its own good. In its desire to delve deep into the depths of grief, the film offers little respite from the pain and there’s barely any light at the end of the tunnel.
While Good Grief is tonally consistent and it certainly nails the ‘grief’ half of its title, it struggles to deliver the ‘good’ part. The result is a picture which circles around its characters, without quite knowing where it’s going, and at times it’s a bit of a slog to get through.
That said, there is something here, and aspects of it do work well. So, if the premise tickles your pickle then give it a go, but if it leaves you uninterested maybe skip it for now.
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