Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

A Good Person Blu-ray Movie Review

Oxy clean?

Reviewed by Randy Miller III May 26, 2023

The second movie in a year where Florence Pugh's performance outshines the script, Zach Braff's A Good Person is at least quite a bit more even-handed than the first one. Not that it's much easier to watch: this downbeat drama explores the turbulent fallout between a group of New Jersey friends and relatives after a horrible car wreck leads to two deaths, an addition to painkillers, and past family trauma bubbling back to the surface. Perfect for date night!

The story goes like this: Allison (Pugh) and Nathan (Chinaza Uche), who are celebrating their recent engagement, seem to have a bright future ahead including plenty of friends and decent career prospects. Their joy doesn't last long when, during an afternoon errand, Allison inadvertently causes a traffic accident that kills both passengers in her car -- future sister-in-law Molly (Nichelle Hines) and her husband Jesse (Toby Onwumere), the parents of teenaged Ryan (Celeste O'Connor) -- while she's left with near-fatal injuries. Fast-forward a year, and everything has changed: we learn that Allison broke up with Nathan, now lives back at home with her single mom Diane (Molly Shannon), and has developed a crippling addiction to Oxycontin. Meanwhile, Ryan is now in the care of her grandpa Daniel (Morgan Freeman) and has been acting rebellious at school and home. On all fronts, it's a pretty damn bleak situation.

For better or worse, A Good Person is one of those "stew in your juices" dramas where all the characters are at or near rock bottom and they've got to help each other claw their way back to the surface. In its favor are a handful of solid performances -- chief among them are Pugh and Freeman for sure, with a decent supporting role for up-and-coming Celeste O'Connor. These three get the most screen time once A Good Person grows more comfortable in its own skin: Allison finally shuffles into an AA meeting for her pill dependence, Daniel's actually there for a different addiction (the recent temptation of alcohol, which fractured his relationship with Nathan), and Ryan's stuck inside the dense fog of adolescence with only a sporadically grumpy, model train-obsessed grandpa to keep her in line.

Are these characters solid enough that you'll care what happens to them? Yes, for the most part. Strong performances help us to separate unlikeable actions from unlikeable people, yet a number of clumsy narrative twists only exacerbate A Good Person's main weak point: it's more than a little naval-gazing and often depends on indie song cues to do some of the heavy emotional lifting. (Are you surprised?) A number of astronomically dumb decisions by Ryan later in the film -- which I'd say were totally out of character, except that she's a teenager -- also stretches out its climax for a another few scenes. At just over two hours, A Good Person could have used that extra time in better ways, such as showing us a few glimpses of the missing year between Allison's accident and the present day. (It makes for a big dramatic turn, sure, but this lack of a smoother transition actually robs a few character paths of their power.)

Despite these flaws, A Good Person is still an engaging and ultimately hopeful film that's well-acted but most certainly doomed to be "minor", given its blink-and-you'll-miss-it theatrical run and a lighting-fast turnaround to Blu-ray from Warner Bros/MGM. We at least get a decent movie-only disc, but the lack of bonus features are definitely a negative and hurt the impact of what feels like at least a semi-personal effort from writer/director Zach Braff.

A Good Person Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Aside from a few colorful establishing shots and occasional patches of brightness, A Good Person is a suitably bleak-looking film that rarely sports anything close to a vivid color palette. Yet this 1080p transfer still seems to represent its digitally-shot source material fairly well: despite a slightly processed appearance, fine detail is quite good in the right conditions, as well as contrast levels and even shadow detail, though black levels rarely reach true "widescreen black". The only non-native roadblock here is macro blocking, which can be spotted on a few densely-detailed objects such as clothing patterns and busy backgrounds. It's not all that distracting in motion (if you even notice it to begin with), yet it's very presence on a dual-layered movie-only disc is pretty surprising. While A Good Person's lackluster box-office performance all but eliminated the possibility of a 4K edition, I'd image that a 2160p/HDR transfer would have yielded much better results overall... yet, for the most part, this 1080p transfer is just fine.

A Good Person Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Much less demanding is the film's DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix, which carries with it a mostly front-forward and dialogue-driven sound stage that's decorated lightly by more immersive and discrete effects depending on location, such as the high-ceilinged church where Allison's AA meeting happens and a concert and after-party in Brooklyn. Otherwise, the added music cues are what much of A Good Person's atmosphere depends on, and most of these deliver with a strong dynamic range and several surprisingly deep dips into LFE territory. For the most part it's still a fairly subdued effort, but either way this lossless surround mix gets the job done without any problems.

Optional subtitles, including English (SDH), are included during the main feature.

A Good Person Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a standard keepcase with poster-themed cover art, a matching slipcover, and no inserts of any kind. Somewhat disappointingly, absolutely no bonus features are included either -- this is the kind of film where an audio commentary or interview with the writer/director would have gone a long way.

A Good Person Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Zach Braff's A Good Person is the kind of film whose ultra-low profile and recognizable cast might cause you to stumble upon it someday and think, "Huh, never head of it." This is a shame because, while it clearly has a few nagging flaws, it's a well-acted and ultimately hopeful film about a pretty difficult subject that might hit staggeringly close to home for some people. It's well worth a watch, though WB's Blu-ray could be better: the A/V presentation is fine with slight reservations, but the lack of extras doesn't justify its high-profile price tag. Try before you buy, surely.