A Good Person
United Artists Releasing | Release Date: March 24, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
50
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
15
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 22, 2023
A work of art such as A Good Person cannot be the product of some casual connection. It’s the product of a soul connection, and I hope Braff and Pugh get another chance to work together. Read full review
80
Film ThreatAlan NgApr 6, 2023
Not sure if anyone wants to hear this, but A Good Person is a simple yet complex drama with the intention of bringing some good to this world. Read full review
80
VarietyOwen GleibermanMar 22, 2023
It’s an addiction drama that has scenes you can bicker with, a few contrivances, and other peccadilloes. Yet beneath the middlebrow situational conventionality, there’s a core of raw feeling and truth to it. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 30, 2023
Although narrative aspects of A Good Person occasionally veer into areas that are either cliched or artificial, many individual scenes are effective (at times powerful). Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comNell MinowMar 24, 2023
Some sharp dialogue and Freeman and Pugh's committed and insightful performances hold it together. Read full review
75
ObserverEmily ZemlerMar 22, 2023
Even as the film’s plot tips slightly overdramatic, it hits on something that feels very true, especially for viewers who have experience with addicts. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinMar 23, 2023
A Good Person isn’t an easy ride but, like such disparate, if similarly themed, movies as “Rabbit Hole,” “Waves” and “Four Good Days,” it’s a haunting slice of real life that will make you think, feel and maybe even want to reach out to your loved ones. Read full review
70
We Got This CoveredMartin CarrMar 23, 2023
Florence Pugh gives another magnetic performance in this hard hitting redemption drama, written and directed by Zach Braff. Aided and abetted by Morgan Freeman, an otherwise average melodrama is elevated by two movie stars on top form. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckMar 22, 2023
Pugh delivers a superb starring performance that serves to accentuate her growing artistic stature and co-star Morgan Freeman turns in his best work in years after appearing in far too many sub-par vehicles. Their efforts lift A Good Person, which otherwise too often feels familiar in its themes and self-conscious in its melodramatic plot contrivances. Read full review
67
ColliderRoss BonaimeMar 22, 2023
Led by two solid performances by Pugh and Freeman, A Good Person shows growth from Braff as both a writer and director, as he attempts to push himself into a more mature story that we’re used to from him. Read full review
63
The Associated PressLindsey BahrMar 22, 2023
A Good Person seems to belong to a uniquely Dan Fogelman-esque subgenre of hyper sincere melodrama that sometimes clicks (“This Is Us”) and other times does not (“Life Itself”). Braff’s film is worlds better than “Life Itself,” but there are some similarities in how it strives for cosmic significance and ultimate tearjerking within a construct that the film tries to sell as authentically specific. In execution, it’s a bit more strained and contrived. Read full review
60
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiMar 22, 2023
It’s a tender drama and one that focuses on its characters in interesting, thoughtful ways. Read full review
58
Original-CinJim SlotekMar 24, 2023
Two hours witnessing the agony of a guilt-ridden pill addict doesn’t exactly have “good times” written all over it. To make it an experience worth enduring requires something more. Read full review
51
Paste MagazineJesse HassengerMar 22, 2023
A Good Person winds up with the ambition of a novel, but little of the richness. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 30, 2023
Pugh has never been better than she is here, utterly immersed in the character’s accent and world-shrinking despair. And Freeman lends some flint and fire and sparkle to this simple redemption tale that touches, amuses, overreaches and overstays its welcome. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 23, 2023
Despite the fine performances, A Good Person starts off on the wrong foot and never finds a solid stride. Read full review
50
The New York TimesBrandon YuMar 23, 2023
Braff is going for something broader than indie naturalism, so perhaps the film calls for less subtle brushstrokes. But the result is something that rings with far less thoughtfulness than he’s clearly capable of (particularly in light of the opioid crisis that the film mentions), despite Pugh’s remarkable attempts to ground the story. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonMar 22, 2023
If nothing else, Braff gets good to great performances out of his cast. The standouts are Pugh and Freeman: She’s a violent slash of petulance, while he remains a master of barely concealed wrath. Both actors are willing to plumb the depths of desperation, but their hard work is wasted in a film unworthy of their talents. A Good Person is a mediocre movie. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesMar 22, 2023
Scaffolding his story on an illogical foundation, Braff (Garden State, Wish I Was Here) continues to be an aggravatingly unsubtle filmmaker, over-relying on totems of profundity (a train set, a tattoo) and showboating with the camera in ways that distract rather than enhance the drama. Read full review
50
SlashfilmVanessa ArmstrongMar 22, 2023
The intentions of the movie are clear and admirable, but the execution of A Good Person, in the end, misses the mark. Read full review
42
The PlaylistCharles BarfieldMar 22, 2023
Great actors and inspired performances can only help a film so much. And in the case of “A Good Person,” Zach Braff presents another competent movie that checks all of the dramatic boxes but does so in a way that feels like ChatGPT has already invaded Hollywood. Read full review
42
IndieWireJude DryMar 22, 2023
Though Pugh valiantly muscles through the melancholy beats of Braff’s melodrama, there are too many other characters and plot threads to allow her to do much besides heave the story forward. Read full review
40
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyMar 24, 2023
A Good Person has a tendency to approach moral complexity as a checklist. Read full review
40
Rolling StoneDavid FearMar 24, 2023
You don’t blame Braff for wanting to craft a movie around [Pugh]. But you can blame him for the movie itself that surrounds that performance, as well as a seriously ludicrous climax — one of several — set in a Williamsburg house party and a coda so self-aggrandizingly lachrymose that you’ll have to resist the urge to scream. Read full review
40
NMESam WarnerMar 23, 2023
A Good Person unfortunately won’t stand as Braff’s finest achievement, and while Pugh and Freeman each give strong turns with what they’re given, even they can’t save this patchy effort from misfiring. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonMar 22, 2023
Pugh and Freeman are superb at embodying their characters’ emotional wounds, but Braff’s melodramatic approach quickly becomes oppressive, clumsily orchestrating wild highs and lows with such inelegance that his protagonists start to resemble helpless pawns he is pushing around the narrative chessboard. Read full review
38
The Seattle TimesChase HutchinsonMar 22, 2023
It is as if Pugh is having to push her way through narrative waters that threaten to wash away her performance. No matter how she continues to rise to the challenge, the film’s cascading of contrivances drown her out. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineDerek SmithMar 22, 2023
The more that Zach Braff’s script tries to thematically tie its disparate threads together, the more that A Good Person comes to resemble the very same type of neat and tidy self-contained version of reality that it ironically skewers in its prologue. Read full review
37
Washington PostPat PaduaMar 22, 2023
In this wildly uneven melodrama by writer-director Zach Braff, no member of the talented ensemble cast is entirely able to navigate its messy plot. That a few actors do manage to stay afloat for occasional breaths of air seems like a divine miracle. Read full review
30
Little White LiesCharles BramescoMar 23, 2023
Pugh’s greatest tribulation of all is delivering the tin-eared dialogue torn between the emotional sadism it heaps onto its protagonist and the adulation it lavishes on the actress playing her. Read full review
25
The A.V. ClubMurtada ElfadlMar 22, 2023
Asking the question “what makes a good person” might have been an intriguing idea. However, in trying to come up with an answer, A Good Person ends up presenting an overwrought narrative that’s full of cliches that do not resonate. Read full review
20
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 22, 2023
Braff puts us through a gruelling “relapse” montage as Allison hits the pills again after an illusory breakthrough and then a “recovery” montage as she gets it together. And the film’s single valuable lesson – the one about not looking at your phone while driving – is all but forgotten. Read full review
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