A Good Person * *

From the awkwardly contrived opening scenes,  I'm thinking, this isn't right.  There is something wrong here.  It's not like a movie.  It's all kind of clunky and unreal, but not in a good way or a funny way.  

Then I realised what it was like - SOAP.  But its not taking the piss. It's just really bad dialogue. Full of expository statements and totally unconvincing. The actors try and try to make it come to life but it just doesn't sound real.  

Good Person.  Bad Film!

It's about addiction and probably the worse film I have seen on that subject since the execrable Ben is Back.  

Allison has killed people in a car accident. It's blamed on her looking at a mobile phone, but personally I think it was the awful dialogue she and the other passengers were using.  "Why are we talking like this?"

Florence Pugh has deservedly got a lot of praise for her role as Allison.  She deserves it, because somehow despite the dreadful clumsy stumbling story, she almost makes it work.  But you can see the poor girl is struggling and has had to work very, very hard.   

Morgan Freeman gets a few ticks too.  His character is a redeemed alcoholic and a man who used to commit terrible domestic violence.  Now he plays with his model railway and looks after his orphaned grand daughter.  Her parents having been killed by Allison in the car crash. 

Scene after disjointed scene is piled upon us for over two hours, and every one of them is scarcely believable and so "try hard". It's like those television advertisements where they try to dramatise a situation. All you can see is the effort and the pleading to accept its attempt at reality, but it is what it is - false!

It's written and directed by actor Zach Braff who has probably read a lot of screen plays and witnessed a lot of directors.  Maybe he thought "I can do that".  No you can't.