Joey Magidson
Welcome back to my Home Movies! This week, I’m actually doubling back to last week for my top pick. We can pretend there’s some strategy, but in truth…I got the date wrong on one of my favorite films of the year hitting shelves. It’s Zach Braff‘s A Good Person, so today, we make up for that mistake. Read on for more…
A Good Person
Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman are at the tops of their respective games in Braff’s latest writing and directing project. I spoke to Braff here about the film, which is a conversation well worth checking out. Freeman and especially Pugh elevate Braff’s movie from good to great. I raved about the flick here in my review, which started off like so:
Zach Braff as a filmmaker has proven to be a storyteller I deeply respond to. Garden State and Wish I Was Here are brilliantly effective quirky dramedies, establishing his specific voice. I even really enjoyed his remake of Going in Style, which he only directed, as opposed to writing and directing his other features. Now, with A Good Person, Braff has showcased the same feel for characters and emotions, while telling a more mature and far more complex tale. Not everyone will be expecting what he has in store for audiences here, but I was blown away. This film is the class of the year so far, cinematically.
A Good Person is Braff working in a whole new key. To be sure, having a muse in Florence Pugh changes the dynamic a bit, though it’s certainly not the only factor. It just seems like he’s telling a more mature story. His emotions and sense of humor are still fully in evidence, flowing through each character, but here, there’s tragedy compounded on to it all. It easily could have turned into a mess, or rang false, but that’s decidedly not the case. It all builds to a satisfying conclusion that had me openly weeping.
Also Available This Week
Assassin Club
The Event: The Complete Series (TV)
The L Word Generation Q: Season Three (TV)
La Brea: The Complete Second Season (TV)
Mafia Mamma (director Catherine Hardwicke interviewed here)
Tulsa King: The Complete First Season (TV)
The Rules of the Game
From The Criterion Collection: “Considered one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners in which a weekend at a marquis’s country château lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haut-bourgeois acquaintances. The film has had a tumultuous history: it was subjected to cuts after the violent response of the audience at its 1939 premiere, and the original negative was destroyed during World War II; it wasn’t reconstructed until 1959. That version, which has stunned viewers for decades, is presented here.”
Stay tuned for more next week…
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