Good Grief is clearly not what many viewers expected from Dan Levy - and the reviews make that pretty clear. It's not a laugh-out-loud comedy. It's not quite a rom-com. It's not anything any of his previous work would have led anyone to anticipate. Good Grief is actually a gentle meditation on loss and heartache, deftly written and stylishly directed. It is also an at times Woody-Allen-esque love letter to both London and Paris. Neither city has ever looked better on film. Perhaps most surprisingly, Dan Levy delivers a beautifully restrained, delicately nuanced performance that gives what might otherwise have been a lightweight film some genuine gravitas. My one reservation was Ruth Negga as Simone, the messy, chaotic, self-absorbed friend. I never for one second believed the character, didn't buy the other characters putting up with her, and was increasingly irked by Negga's doomed efforts to invest Simone with the kind of full-on charisma that might fool you into over-looking just how frightful she is. It would take a legendary comic talent - and I'm talking Goldie Hawn or Barbra Streisand at their peak - to make this character fly. And Ruth Negga ain't that great. It's a shame, since all the other peformances are as good as Levy's.
Review of Good Grief
