Another entry into the "Nazis were bad" genre, what Good has going for it is an excellent examination of what it's like to be part of a society as it slides down into madness. Whether it is Hitler's Germany, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Mao's China or the guillotine's France, the truth is that people try to live normal lives in denial as long as they can. They make excuses or rationalizations or turn a blind eye until they find themselves in a world of moral chaos. Unfortunately, there's not much here beyond that example. The theme is nothing more than "Nazis were bad" and the personal story of the main character is fragmented and disconnected from the broader tale of his country. Both man and nation descend into evil, but there's no relationship between the two. T he movie starts to make an argument that the horrors of the Third Reich grew out of the hearts and minds of ordinary Germans as much as it did their insane leaders, but never follows through on it. Good is well acted and, after a too flashback-oriented beginning, flows quite nicely. However, it lacks either enough to say about its well-covered subject or enough human drama to captivate the audience. I don't regret seeing it, but I wouldn't recommend it.
John Halder (Viggo Mortensen) is a professor of literature at a German college in the late 1930s, as the Nazis are well into their rise to power. His home life is dominated by his tubercular, senile mother (Gemma Jones) and his fragile, distracted wife (Anastasia Hille). His private life mostly revolves around his Jewish psycho-analyst and best friend (Jason Isaccs) and Halder's school life has just been brightened by a beautiful young student (Jodie Whittaker). Then a novel he once wrote that advocated for merciful euthanasia has come to the attention of Hitler himself, as it nicely fits in with his delusions of how to perfect and purify human existence. That drags Halder into the SS and sees his personal importance skyrocket as his marriage dissolves and his friend is made into a pariah until Halder is forced to confront the atrocity he has become part of.
This is supposed to be a film about how evil triumphs when good men do nothing, with Halder playing the role of such a good man. He's not really good, though. John Halder is nice, which is not the same thing. Nice is passive. It's polite and courteous and obliging. Good is active. You're not good unless you're doing good. Halder isn't a good man who flinches in the face of evil. He's a nice man who never wanted to make a fuss. There's a difference between the two and I don't think these filmmakers understood that. Because of that, they fail to link Halder's decisions or hesitations with either his personal degeneration or the souring of his civilization. He's someone caught up in something bigger than himself, not someone whose actions led to his downfall and serves as a metaphor for what happened to Germany.
It's a shame. That sort of depth would have made this a great film because the surface is a finely woven knit. I don't think I've seen another motion picture that was better than Good and helping the viewer understand that German didn't become Nazi Germany overnight. It took years and a million little steps to reach war and Holocaust and for a long time, perfectly reasonable people could dismiss each little step as unimportant and absurd. And even when those steps became too menacing and deadly to deny, it was too late to raise a fuss without losing everything gained while the problem was ignored. Collective guilt has been shoveled upon the Germans, yet the dynamic that drove them wasn't much different from Americans who tolerated slavery and segregation. The founding and forging of America is bound up with the virtual genocide of the Indian nations. The actual genocide of the Jews was just more rapid, more intentional, more comprehensive and more recent.
If you'd like a smart, but not all that deep, trip back into the world of Aryan supremacy, Good is not a bad choice. If you're looking for something on the topic that is profound or deeply moving, you should probably choose something else.
John Halder (Viggo Mortensen) is a professor of literature at a German college in the late 1930s, as the Nazis are well into their rise to power. His home life is dominated by his tubercular, senile mother (Gemma Jones) and his fragile, distracted wife (Anastasia Hille). His private life mostly revolves around his Jewish psycho-analyst and best friend (Jason Isaccs) and Halder's school life has just been brightened by a beautiful young student (Jodie Whittaker). Then a novel he once wrote that advocated for merciful euthanasia has come to the attention of Hitler himself, as it nicely fits in with his delusions of how to perfect and purify human existence. That drags Halder into the SS and sees his personal importance skyrocket as his marriage dissolves and his friend is made into a pariah until Halder is forced to confront the atrocity he has become part of.
This is supposed to be a film about how evil triumphs when good men do nothing, with Halder playing the role of such a good man. He's not really good, though. John Halder is nice, which is not the same thing. Nice is passive. It's polite and courteous and obliging. Good is active. You're not good unless you're doing good. Halder isn't a good man who flinches in the face of evil. He's a nice man who never wanted to make a fuss. There's a difference between the two and I don't think these filmmakers understood that. Because of that, they fail to link Halder's decisions or hesitations with either his personal degeneration or the souring of his civilization. He's someone caught up in something bigger than himself, not someone whose actions led to his downfall and serves as a metaphor for what happened to Germany.
It's a shame. That sort of depth would have made this a great film because the surface is a finely woven knit. I don't think I've seen another motion picture that was better than Good and helping the viewer understand that German didn't become Nazi Germany overnight. It took years and a million little steps to reach war and Holocaust and for a long time, perfectly reasonable people could dismiss each little step as unimportant and absurd. And even when those steps became too menacing and deadly to deny, it was too late to raise a fuss without losing everything gained while the problem was ignored. Collective guilt has been shoveled upon the Germans, yet the dynamic that drove them wasn't much different from Americans who tolerated slavery and segregation. The founding and forging of America is bound up with the virtual genocide of the Indian nations. The actual genocide of the Jews was just more rapid, more intentional, more comprehensive and more recent.
If you'd like a smart, but not all that deep, trip back into the world of Aryan supremacy, Good is not a bad choice. If you're looking for something on the topic that is profound or deeply moving, you should probably choose something else.