Alternative script for the manic pixie
A GOOD PERSON
Director: Zach Braff
Cast: Florence Pugh, Molly Shannon, Chinaza Uche, Morgan Freeman
Rating: (R16) ★★★
Writerdirector Zach Braff’s 2004 debut, Garden State, is perhaps best remembered as the most wellknown instance of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, embodied in Natalie Portman’s effervescent character who exists solely to inspire the brooding, soulful protagonist to live, laugh and love again.
Needless to say, it hasn’t aged well, although during the opening minutes of Braff’s third feature, A Good Person (Rialto), it feels like he might be repeating himself, as Florence Pugh’s character of Allison, about to be betrothed to the presumably once brooding and soulful Nathan
(Chinaza Uche), literally dances over the screen in a state of bliss and joy.
Coupled with a voiceover from Morgan Freeman about model trains being a metaphor for life, which is about the most cliched way you could ever begin a film starring Morgan Freeman, and I was starting to feel begrudgingly resigned to a twohour hatewatch of excruciating proportions.
Luckily, things perk up rather quickly once Allison, excitedly on the way to try on her wedding dress, is involved in a car accident that kills two of her future inlaws. Fast forward a year and she is separated from Nathan, living at her mother’s and hooked on OxyContin — the Manic Pixie Dream Girl after the fall.
Yep, this a movie about addiction, simplistic to a fault but also fitfully insightful, with an incredible performance by Pugh — and a strong one from Freeman as Nathan’s father Daniel, a recovering alcoholic — that prevents the whole thing from spilling over into awfulness.