Dan Levy, going way beyond "Schitt's Creek" or any of his previous efforts, attempts a warm comedy-drama about grieving and friendship, and makes it about halfway. As Marc, the unexpectedly widowed husband of a fabulously successful writer trafficking in Harry Potter-style fantasy, he's earnest, somber, and well-dressed. (Lots of tenty sweaters; are you trying to hide the waistline, Dan?) His best friends, an annoying Ruth Negga and a verbose Himesh Patel, try to rally around him; we never find out much about them, except their past relationships with him (he and Patel are exes), and that, despite whatever financial troubles they occasionally proclaim, they live very well. The three trek off to a gorgeously photographed Paris, where Marc investigates a troubling factoid that has just come up about his marriage, and where he meets a too-good-and-handsome-to-be-true possible boyfriend (what he'd see in Marc I fail to see), and we're left hanging about that relationship. The grieving feels real enough, and it's a placid, pretty movie. Just...quiet, and while one applauds Levy for trying to break out of his mold, I wanted more confrontation, more excitement, deeper exploration.
Review of Good Grief
