‘Good’ a failed morality tale
Good
Directed by Vicente Amorim
Starring Viggo Mortensen, Jodie Whittaker, Jason Isaacs
By Mina Hochberg
amNewYork movie critic
The last in a string of Holocaust movies to come out in the past few months, “Good” wastes a talented cast on an overbearing story that’s awkwardly executed.
Set in Germany on the cusp of World War II, Viggo Mortensen stars as John Halder, a college literature professor juggling a job, an ailing mother and a wife with an unspecified psychological condition that’s reduced her to a meek wisp of a person.
At the outset he seems a decent man who knows right from wrong, but all that changes when the Fuhrer pats him on the back and rewards him for writing a novel about euthanasia. Pretty soon, Halder has dumped his wife for an Aryan hottie half his age and is clinking wine glasses with Nazis. The ultimate litmus test of his goodness is his best friend, a Jewish therapist named Maurice (Jason Isaacs). Will the budding Nazi take his friend under his wing, or will he let Maurice be hauled off to the camps?
Isaacs’ and Mortensen’s reputations manage to bring shreds of dignity to their weakly etched characters, but “Good” is otherwise beset with toneless dialogue and a general malaise of misguidance. It’s too clumsy to navigate the sensitive terrain of a moral struggle, let alone one that’s set during the Holocaust. For a story about a man in moral decline, you barely get an honest glimpse into his heart and mind.
By tracing Halder’s dilemma in such an unfelt manner, “Good” unwittingly exploits the Holocaust as a convenient context for a morality tale.
