Good Grief (2024)

Score: 2 / 5

Marc and Oliver have been husbands for many years, and we meet them at a cozy, upper class Christmas party in London shortly before Oliver departs early to travel to Paris and is suddenly killed in a car accident. So begins Good Grief a marginally humorous drama about, as you'd expect, grieving the loss of one's longtime partner. It seems especially interested in the psychology of learning, through the grieving process, that one's partner may in fact be someone one hardly knows. Not in a creepy, erotic thriller or domestic invasion way, but rather the simple fact that some people keep secrets, and some people are very good at doing so. So when Marc reads a letter from Oliver a year after his husband's death and learns that Oliver was having an affair, his reeling emotional state spurs him on to make some rash, understandable, and "funny" decisions.

Dan Levy, who wrote and directed this material, also stars as Marc, and while he's never less than a riveting onscreen presence, here I daresay he tried juggling too many things at once. Perhaps flying solo as a creative artist so soon after the wild successes of Schitt's Creek is too much for Levy, but his material here is so unwieldy and unfocused and undynamic that you have to wish someone else had offered some workshopping or editing to his drafts and shoots. What we thought was such a specific, refined, and insightful voice in the hit comedy series has foundered elsewhere, and in this directorial debut, he's barely treading water. What purports to be a sensitive thematic study of loss loses itself in a mired mess of rabbit-trail plotlines, unnecessary globetrotting (read: flaunting of privilege), and boorish, even nasty behavior that the film itself tries to excuse.

The strongest elements of this film are in its casting, as Levy's chemistry with costars Ruth Negga and Himesh Patel is endlessly watchable. They play Marc's best friends Sophie and Thomas, respectively, who accompany him to Paris to visit the apartment Oliver was secretly leasing to carry on his affair. In fact, it was to this apartment Oliver was headed the night he died, the night he left the letter for Marc revealing his infidelity. Sophie and Thomas have troubles of their own, but their unconditional love for Marc is really beautiful, if overly convenient for the purpose of this story. The gimmick that they'd just up and travel internationally for funsies without any actual rationale wears thin quickly, but they're likable enough that we go along for the ride, too.

Levy's attempt at an ode to chosen family is equally thickly written, with Marc identifying himself multiple times as both an orphan and a widower (I should note that, early on, we learn Marc shied away from fully grieving his mother by starting his relationship with Oliver). But apart from their clear affection for each other, we don't really get much insight into who Sophie and Thomas are as characters, making each little tidbit feels like a profound revelation, which is arguably evidence of shallow writing. Probably because they're mostly used as mirrors for Marc and for letting us hear more insight into his whole deal. Similarly, there's a new love interest that materializes so abruptly, it's as if the film is screaming at us to not be sad because it knows how to do the rom-com schtick. So it's not a total waste of time -- I don't think Negga is ever a waste of time -- but it's certainly forgettable and disappointingly dull.