‘A Good Person’ Review – Emotional Story Of Loss & Addiction

A Good Person is a story of how an ordinary persons life can take a tragic turn after one twist of fate.

The film opens at an engagement party of a young couple Allison (Florence Pugh) and Nathan (Chinaza Uche). Allison, blissfully happy, newly engaged, surrounded by friends and a budding musician as she sings and plays the piano to their guests.

A few scenes later as Allison drives her soon to be sister-in-law and brother-in-law to a dress fitting she momentarily takes her eyes off the road to look at her phone and her life is changed forever as she is injured and her passengers killed.

A Year later Allison and Nathan are no longer together. Allison is left an OxyContin addict after being prescribed them for her injuries, living with her mother (Molly Shannon), jobless and broke.

As she attends an NA meeting she bumps into Nathan’s father Daniel (Morgan Freeman) who is dealing with his own grief and addiction issues. The pair become unlikely friends after some hesitance. Some of the best scenes are when they are together as Allison battles multiple relapses.

The film is back and forth with blame and guilt as Daniel and his granddaughter Ryan (Celeste O’Connor) start to accept Allison into their lives after blaming her for the accident.

The film is a realistic look at opiate addiction with believable scenes of withdrawal, craving and relapse and a damning realization that doctors are cutting off prescriptions to patients, forcing users on to street drugs.

My only gripes are some hypocrisy from Allison’s mother who gets drunk around her recovering daughter while trying to take the higher ground about sobriety and flushing her pills down the toilet. Also Ryan falls under every teenage stereotype, making quite obviously bad decisions even for a 16 year old.

Ultimately this film is held up by Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman’s great performances. Freeman is as solid as always and Pugh is becoming a powerhouse of an actor.

A Good Person is available to rent on Home Premiere in the US and is newly streaming on Sky Movies and Now TV in the UK.