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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Peter Bradshaw

Good Boy review – Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough turn nasty in Kubrickian absurdist nightmare

Sit … Stephen Graham and Anson Boon in Good Boy.
Sit … Stephen Graham and Anson Boon in Good Boy. Photograph: FlixPix/Alamy

Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough headline an absurdist nightmare from Polish film-maker Jan Komasa, co-produced by Jerzy Skolimowski and Jeremy Thomas. It’s a movie that could have been made at any time in the past 50 years, with high-concept provocations and talking points that feel like something from the age of Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange or Ôshima’s Max Mon Amour, or even, indeed, Skolimowski’s The Shout.

In present day England, Tommy (played by Anson Boon) is a teenage kid completely obnoxious and out of control: clubbing and bingeing booze and coke, evidently paid for with the monetisation income from hugely successful social media streams which show him racing stolen cars with his similarly odious mates. But Tommy’s online profile has caught the disapproving eye of Chris (Graham), a middle-aged road-safety campaigner and family values enthusiast, who wears a wig and has high-up contacts in the police and Home Office.

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