THE GOOD HALF - Mark Reviews Movies

The Good Half, Utopia

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 15, 2024

At its core, The Good Half is the story of a man avoiding grief. That's a natural reaction to loss for most people, manifesting in assorted ways. For Renn (Nick Jonas), that means avoiding the topic of his mother's illness and death, joking about pretty much everything, and trying to remember what life was like before his mother's cancer diagnosis and the moment his sister called to tell him that their mother had died.

That's the character, trying to remain removed and distanced from the reality that has come crashing down upon him. It is also, in many ways, the nature of writer Brett Ryland and director Robert Schwartzman's movie, which takes Renn's perspective and general attitude. The result is a story that feels emotionally detached and more interested in coming up with clever lines and awkward situations than confronting what's right in front of it.

Is it fair to criticize a movie for having a specific point of view and carrying through on that approach? In some way, it probably isn't, and to be fair to the filmmakers, there are scenes here that do feel honest and genuine about Renn's way of dealing with or, better, avoiding grief. The bigger picture of the story, though, is one that too often seems to go out of its way to evade that degree of honesty, especially during an odd romantic subplot and the multiple scenes that revolve more around a joke than anything else.

The movie opens with the first of many flashbacks showing Renn's relationship with his mother Lily, played with eminent warmth and personality by Elisabeth Shue. When Renn was a kid (played by Mason Cufari), Lily forgot him in a Cleveland mall while she was shopping, and to ease the kid's mind, she promises never to forget him again. The young Renn takes it further, asking his mom to promise never to leave him,

She does, and then, Renn, now in his late 20s and living as a struggling writer in Los Angeles, gets the call from his sister Leigh (Brittany Snow). Their mother has died.

This means a trip home to Cleveland to settle the mother's affairs, make funeral arrangements, and attend all of the services and social gatherings associated with death. Renn is there for all of it, although it'd be difficult to argue that he's actually present for any of it. Jonas, better known as a musician, gets his first leading role in this movie, and it's the kind of performance that doesn't provide much insight into his potential as an actor.

To be sure, he's fine here, specifically as a man who is disconnected from everything going on and everyone around him. Maybe part of the issue with the character, as well as how the movie communicates its ideas about mourning, is that Jonas aims solely for that one quality of Renn. If there's more to the guy, it's not communicated in between the dialogue or the vacant stares of the actor's work.

That makes it a bit difficult to really comprehend what's going on with Renn, who greets his sister and father (played by Matt Walsh) upon returning to the home he grew up in, only to stew in his childhood bedroom, sneak downstairs for a drink, have an awkward heart-to-heart with his dad, and run off to a bar for more drinks with a stranger he met on the plane ride. She's Zoey (Alexandra Shipp), a therapist in town for a conference and to avoid the uncomfortable scene of her ex-husband packing up his things. As an escape from the discomfort of funeral preparations and the hidden pain of losing his mother, Renn probably couldn't do much better.

The screenplay certainly could have, though, because there's not much to Zoey beyond her kind and comforting nature or the relationship beyond the strange inclusion of a requisite possible love interest for our protagonist. The key point aside from those things, perhaps, is that Renn doesn't mention his mother's death to Zoey until it's absolutely necessary—either for him or the screenplay, which shouldn't be a question here in a story that's primarily a character study. Is his avoidance of the topic in this situation unique about Renn, though? It's not, because that is, after all, the major characteristic of the guy.

The majority of the story revolves around Renn, Leigh, and, occasionally, their stepfather Rick (David Arquette), who wasn't there for Lily during her illness but is paying for the funeral, going through the weird processes and customs that happen after a person's death. They gather Lily's effects from the hospital, pick out a casket (even though Renn points out she wanted to cremated), and talk with a priest about the eulogy he'll deliver (even though Lily was Jewish). The unease and oddness of such scenes is accurate, so Renn's jokey personality and detached attitude complement them.

When those traits seem to be only thing about the character, though, it's tough to see what the movie is attempting other than some one-note irony, a late attempt at sincerity, and a climactic robbery that's too much of a gag for it to offer much resolution or any catharsis. The Good Half has one idea in mind, and it's a fundamentally limiting one, too.

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