Daniel Levy debuts as a feature-film writer and director in this drama-romance-comedy film starring Levy, Ruth Negga, Himesh Patel, Luke Evans, Celia Imrie, Arnaud Valois and others. The film, showcasing three friends finding themselves in Paris after one of them losing their partner suddenly, is an emotional rollercoaster that promises to be an extremely relatable watch with a runtime of 105 minutes.
The problem with watching and loving Schitt’s Creek, Dan Levy’s previous uber-successful heartfelt series that left us all warm and fuzzy, is that you can’t love Dan Levy in anything after. It’s totally biased, and unfortunately, there’s no running from David Rose, however much you try. That being said, Good Grief is a heartbreaking and warm film which, unfortunately, will not be for everyone. The brief little bit we see of Luke Evan’s Oliver will leave you a bit broken for when he dies and leaves Marc directionless and afloat. Of course, he has his friends, but losing your person, your soulmate, is a feeling of loneliness like no other.
This movie is a slow but definite march, or jazz dancing, towards moving on. Underneath that grief, however, there is some humour that leaves you laughing while you grapple with the heartache of the reality of all of our lives. There’s something very raw and real about this exploration of emotions and grief that will leave you hopeful but heavy-hearted. Daniel Levy brings a sort of emotion into Marc that makes you see yourself in him, and even though the movie isn’t anything new or extraordinary and mostly consists of long blocks of dialogue, it hits you differently in every scene.
In spite of the grief, though, I found myself smiling for most of the runtime. As I said previously, there’s a raw, unfiltered truth to the movie that makes your heart oddly optimistic in spite of the loss. Yes, it sometimes does lose itself a little bit, and it drags on with its multiple monologues, but in the end, it’s a relatable and hard movie to go through, especially because it makes you feel like you might just be in a similar situation at some point.
Daniel Levy, Ruth Negga and Himesh Patel are great as the three friends in Paris going through something and coming to terms with the pain and grief in their lives. Levy is great at bringing forth a relatable emotion in all of his shows that is infectious and oddly comforting. He feels like all of us.
Good Grief Review: Conclusion
This might be too heavy a movie for many because it’s a lot of dialogues and a lot of emotions that sometimes can weigh the runtime down. It’s an inevitability with movies like these. But even with that, there’s something warm and hopeful about Good Grief that wraps around your heart in an odd, comforting way.
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