In movies and television, sometimes the comedic goofball comes out of nowhere with a serious dramatic effort. Think Jim Carey inThe Truman Showor even Brendon Fraser’s acclaimed performance inThe Whale.Who knew they had it in them?
Actor Zach Braff made this remarkable transition in 2004 by writing, directing, and starring in thecomedic dramaGarden State.The movie truly came snuck up on us, coming from the actor best known as eccentric and lovable doctor JD onScrubs.Garden State isthe story of a lithium-stifled struggling actor coming home to Jersey for his mother’s funeral and finding love and peace with his past. The movie is packed with laughs and heart and Braff truly breaks new ground with his performance.
Braff’s latest directorial effort,A Good Person,starring Florence Pugh, Molly Shannon, and Morgan Freeman will debut in March 2023. From early looks, it will be a drama about tragic loss and redemption, nothing spectacularly original, but with Braff behind the keyboard and in the director’s chair once again, we’re hopeful for a bittersweet and humorous romp with great performances from an a-list cast.
The trailer forA Good Personrecently dropped, giving audiences a better idea of what to expect. Here’s a breakdown of the footage from the film.
A Tragic Accident Is Rooted In Mistakes
The trailer begins with Morgan Freeman’s famously calm monotone describing the process and philosophies of model train enthusiasts interspersed with a small-town crowd cheering on a kids’soccer match. It cuts away to Nathan (Chinaza Uche) professing his love to Florence Pugh’s Allison in front of a full room of onlookers. Overhead trains fade to overhead highway traffic with Allison driving, presumably intoxicated, her future sister-in-law in tow, and swerving out to avoid a large construction crane.
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The shot swings to Freeman’s Daniel getting the phone call that his daughter has been killed in the accident and Allison is in a hospital bed. We see Pugh charging down a street on a bicycle, cutting away to a stranger at a bar asking her if she was engaged to Nathan. “Iwas,yeah” she replies in frustration. Nathan approaches Daniel in the park for what seems like their first conversation in a while. He tells Daniel that he’s worried about him as we see Daniel holding a full liquor bottle.
Daniel confronts a tearful Allison exclaiming that he wants his life and his child back. This swings to a shot of Allison downing a bottleful of prescription drugs, and then a spinning shot of her wallowing in bed and telling her mother Diane (Molly Shannon) that she needs help. She rides her bike to a twelve-step meeting only to run into Daniel at the door. She starts to leave, but Daniel implores her to stay, citing something like fate that led her to a meeting with him. He offers his hand to her, and she takes it.
Healing Comes in Many Forms
Daniel’s narration continues as he says that his life has been out of control, catching his granddaughter in bed with an older man. The kid faces a chorus of berating voices as he flees the house to his car, getting sprayed with a neighbor’s hose as he attempts to enter the vehicle. Allison is seen chopping off a foot of her hair in the mirror to the dismay of her mother. “It’s makeover Monday,” Allison coyly says. “It’s Friday,” responds her mother. “Oh.”
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Daniel seems to have taken Allison under his wing, showing her his model train set up in his home; we also see Allison cheering on Daniel’s granddaughter at her soccer match. We find a solitary Nathan on a bench going through an old video of a smiling Allison, back before their lives were turned upside down. Allison stands as a car flashes by, and she sees the image of her almost sister-in-law happily leaping off the ground.
Daniel goes on to say that he purchased an audiobook on “how to talk to your teen,” much to the dismay of his granddaughter and Daniel himself. The trailer concludes with Diane hounding Allison about taking up a craft so they could get a crack at appearing onShark Tank.
Expounding on Garden State
Based on Braff’s other films,A Good Personis almost guaranteed to be amodest tearjerkerthat never quite crosses the line into overly sugary. He has shown a knack for walking that particular line like a high fructose tightrope, sometimes teetering but never losing his stride.
Florence Pugh is always amarvel to watch, but this role could prove to be well beyond anything she’s done so far. Portraying the dual roles of pre- and post-accident Allison seems like it could be two completely different characters. The happy-go-lucky in-love Allison breezes through her life, feeling like nothing can touch her, while the mourning, narcotics-battling version is perpetually stuck in a gear that gets her nowhere with a rearview mirror that won’t stop replaying the past.
