A Good Person, Zach Braff’s latest film, is being released in cinemas on Friday. The drama, which was also written by Braff, stars Florence Pugh as a young woman whose life is turned upside down when she is involved in an car crash.
Pugh has a big year ahead of her: she plays a leading role in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which is set for a summer release, and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, which will be released in autumn.
But while A Good Person isn’t as much of a star-studded affair, it’s been drawing a lot of attention, partly because it’s a collaboration between Braff and Pugh, who were formerly a couple, and partly because Pugh is acting in a role that’s unlike anything she has done before.
Here’s everything to know about Braff’s latest film.
What is the film about?
The film centres on Pugh’s character, Allison, a pharmaceutical saleswoman who is involved in a car accident in which two members of her fiancé’s family are killed. She feels responsible for their deaths, and her life starts to fall apart as she succumbs to her guilt.
The film picks up with her character one year later as Allison is trying to find herself again. Over the last year she’s also been battling an addiction to the opiods she was subscribed to help her manage her grief and her pain.
Her life starts to turn around when she begins to build a friendship of sorts with her fiancé’s father, who is played by Morgan Freeman. They are bound to each other by their losses, but somehow their new relationship becomes a lifeline to them both.
Who is the team behind it?
Braff has produced the film alongside Christine Vachon, whose credits include Todd Haynes’ first feature, Poison; Christina Piovesan, who produced the 2010 biographical film The Whistleblower; co-president of Elevation Pictures Noah Segal; and producer Pamela Kofflerm who worked on the drama Kill Your Darlings (2013). Pugh is also a producer on the film.
Who else is starring in the film?
Alongside Pugh and Freeman, the cast includes Molly Shannon, Chinaza Uche (Dickinson), Celeste O’Connor (Selah and the Spades) and Zoe Lister-Jones (Slip).
Who inspired A Good Person?
One major inspiration for Braff’s film was his best friend, Nick Cordero, and Cordero’s wife Amanda Kloots. Cordero moved into Braff’s guesthouse with Kloots and their new baby shortly before he was hospitalised with COVID – he would die three months later from its complications aged just 41.
“Our property became ground zero for Amanda,” said Braff to Vogue in January. “So many amazing human beings came by, and they’d walk her baby so she could just have an hour of solitude... I really wanted to write about how we as humans, no matter how hard things get, stand back up.”
He also, according to Vogue, explicitly wrote the film for Pugh too.
Why has it been whipping up a lot of interest?
The film has been whipping up a tonne of interest because 27-year-old Pugh and 47-year-old Braff were in a relationship for three years.
“We weren’t in anyone’s faces. It was just that people didn’t like it,” Pugh said to Vogue.
They couple met on the set of In The Time It Takes To Get There, an 11-minute short directed by Braff in which Pugh starred. When they broke up in 2022, she then said: “We’ve been trying to do this separation without the world knowing, because it’s been a relationship that everybody has an opinion on.”
But the duo appear to have remained friends. They appeared on the red carpet together earlier this month when they both attended the UK premiere of A Good Person.
Similarly, Braff was incredibly complimentary about Pugh when he spoke about her role in the film to Collider last March. “Florence Pugh’s performance in the movie, I know I’m biased, but it’s the most miraculous thing you will ever see. I’m not overselling it.”
Speaking to Vogue he also said: “She’s just magnetic. You cannot take your eyes off of her. And it’s not just her beauty and it’s not just her acting ability, it’s that thing, that magic thing that transcends the screen, where anyone and everyone goes: I want to see whatever this person does.”
Pugh really cut her hair for the film
In the film, Allison cuts her hair on screen, and it isn’t a wig: Pugh thought it made sense that her character might do something like cut her hair, so she put the idea to Braff.
He said it couldn’t be done because it would mean the film would have to be shot in time order. “Probably three times, I was like: ‘Florence, it’s such a good idea. Here’s why it’s impossible.’,” said Braff to Vogue. “And she was like: ‘You guys will figure it out.’ And then eventually we did.”
“I just wanted it to be a dreadful mess,” said Pugh.
