Grief can be tricky in films, and grief from a writer/director/actor best known for comedies and TV sitcoms can be an even riskier proposition. But despite some early superficial, wobbling, and earnestly mawkish moments, Emmy award-winning showrunner, writer, actor, director, and producer Dan Levy, best known for co-creating and starring in the sitcom “Schitt’s Creek,” generally (mostly?) pulls it off in his sufficient feature-length debut “Good Grief” in the end. Though it’s also not terribly deep and needlessly glossy in its sheen, it is a well-intentioned and valiant effort with its heart in the right place.
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But it arguably doesn’t begin very convincingly, appearing like a modest, mostly watchable little diversion. Levy stars as Marc Dreyfus, an illustrator married to the uber-charming and beloved Oliver (Luke Evans), a well-renowned fantasy author whose books have already been adapted into a famous film franchise centering on a telepathic truth-seeking girl. Their relationship is loving, but with Marc having put his life and artistic path on hold to serve Oliver’s career, it’s clearly an unequal marriage and one that reveals itself to be more uneven over time.
The plot jumps into gear fast, though, and tragedy strikes after a holiday party that Marc hosts for Oliver before he jets off to Paris for business. No sooner than Marc has kissed his husband goodbye, he watches in horror as ambulance lights begin to circle Oliver’s taxi, the signs of a grave accident (not all that convincing, but fine, whatever).
Having recently lost his mother as well, this devastating loss further shatters Marc and his found and chosen family— the unhappy ex-boyfriend Thomas (Himesh Patel) and the boozy, bratty best friend Sophie (Ruth Negga)—circle the wagons and tend to his vulnerable emotional needs.
The film does have its grievous missteps when trying to insert broad comedy into what works best as a bittersweet story of love and loss (which, yes, does get a little too overwrought and weepy at times). Kaitlyn Dever briefly appears in the beginning at Oliver’s funeral, the star of his film franchise who mostly laments that the movie series is in trouble because the author never finished the final books in the series (Emma Corrin also has a needless cameo that further underscores some of the film’s emptier elements).
Things get complicated, however, when Marc discovers through his accountant (Celia Imrie) that Oliver owns a secret pied-à-terre in Paris. His suspicions of Oliver cheating are confirmed when he belatedly reads the Xmas card he’d been putting off for months, where Oliver confirms the affair (a writing contrivance to be sure; it turns out they had an open relationship with rules, but Oliver betrayed the guidelines time and time again).
As Marc begins to awaken to the idea of how much he deluded himself about the truth of his marriage, he decides to pay for a lavish trip to Paris with his two bffs. It’s seemingly supposed to be a thank-you gift for how his friends have supported him for a year, but it’s clear that Marc wants to soul-search and reconnoiter into Oliver’s secret life but doesn’t want to be alone on the investigative trip either.
It’s here where “Good Grief,” which often resembles a mix of Nora Ephron, Nancy Meyers, and Richard Curtis movies, demonstrates its best and worst qualities. Privilege and wealth are obvious blind spots for its creator; Marc and Oliver were already fabulously wealthy in their London flat, and as universal as loss is, it can be challenging to find great empathy for Marc’s grief when he can galivant off to the city of lights at a moment’s notice and pick up the tab like it doesn’t mean much (and generally seems to live a semi-charmed life).
For a film about mourning and loss, “Good Grief” also navelgazes a lot. It’s a little too fixated on the superficial and stylish, dapper clothes for all involved, a woozy soundtrack, a glistening sheen to all the cinematography—especially Paris at night—and the threat of one too many slick music montages that make you wonder if the filmmaker is more captivated in the Capitale de la Mode than he is with the subject of heartache and bereavement he himself obviously wanted to grapple with. Additionally, there’s a sexiness to Paris and the film that feels incongruent and even misjudged next to the notions of meant-to-be profound sorry and suffering (Rob Simonsen’s wistful score and a pair of on-the-nose Neil Young songs do a lot of the emotional heavy lifting when the writing can’t quite get there).
Fortunately, “Good Grief” is generally (though not always) self-aware enough to understand how messy love, loss, and the often-self-involved Marc are. Grief can be a self-pitying excuse to wallow, and Marc is already tremendously shallow and self-absorbed (sometimes you wonder if Levy’s aware of how narcissistic his character is). But the more the film grapples with the way Marc evades the truth, the more his friends call him out on his flaws—particularly when Thomas is left to foot the bill at an expensive karaoke night when Marc darts off with a potential new fling— the film starts to get a little bit more honest about itself, its lead character, and its hollow and frivolous presentation. Likewise, when his friends uncover his lie and true motivations—stringing them along for an outing so Marc can secretly uncover the truth about his dead husband’s affair—their criticism of his selfish duplicity, under the mask of selflessness, finally feels like we’re getting somewhere with these needy, messy and deeply flawed characters (and yes, this candidness arrives a little on the late side, but better late than never).
“Good Grief” is far from perfect and sometimes too sentimental and self-regarding—it is a star vehicle for its writer/director to emote and ostensibly display a newfound range and artistic side of himself, after all. The friend characters of Sophie and Thomas are also essentially two notes of unreliable and sad sack with unsurprising arcs. And, of course, Marc predictable comes to the revelation that he should return to his painting career and live his own life rather than live in the shadow of Oliver’s life—the dramedy has its issues, to be sure. And yet, at its best, when the melancholy of the story resonates, the lonely sadness shimmers, and the possibility of romance tingles. When Levy’s best intentions ring true— the untidy intricacies of love feel authentically knotty, and the pathway to healing reveals itself to be anything but linear, it feels like the filmmaker is finally leaning into a complexity his film hasn’t previously tried. “Good Grief” arguably doesn’t quite get there in the end, but there is a promising sense of possibility for what the future could hold for Levy as a filmmaker next. [C+]