Leary- GOOD

After watching the movie Good, I realized that the title of the movie had everything to do with the main character, John Halder. Throughout the movie, John seemed like a very “good” guy. Instead of putting his mother in a retirement home, he let her stay at his house where he was constantly babysitting her because she told him she didn’t want to stay at a retirement home. He was a “good” guy to take care of her when he had so many other things to deal with. Also, at the beginning of the movie, John stayed with his wife and kids in order to not break the family up even though he didn’t seem happy. And another main reason he was portrayed as a “good” guy was because he risked his job and the power he had to attempt to buy Maurice a ticket to Paris. All of these reasons didn’t seem good enough when it all came down to it. Even though he seemed to have a big heart and to genuinely want to help the people he loved, he failed them in the end. He put his mom in a house alone, where she tries to commit suicide. He leaves his wife and kids for a younger, Nazi-loving woman that betrays him in the end. Maurice gets taken to a concentration camp and probably killed because John couldn’t get the ticket to Paris.

All of the things he did as a “good” person turned around on him because he was too obsessed with the power he had being apart of the Nazi party. He went from being someone that wanted to help others to a person who would fail others just to be on top. The whole movie tosses you back and forth deciding whether or not John is a good guy or not.

This picture pretty much seems to sum up this film. The picture is a very tight frame where it looks like John and Anne don’t have much room to move with a lot of people crowding in the background while they are in the foreground being the main focus. They are both in the dominant, central position that also makes them the main focus. This picture shows an open shot since it is a very realistic view. The lighting is used with both high key lighting and low-key lighting on their faces that might show that there is a good and bad side of both of them. This is why this picture seems to represent the film very well. Throughout the movie, John is constantly in a tight position. It could be a difficult position on whether or not he should leave his wife, get Maurice that ticket, quit the Nazi party, or many others. The reason I brought up the lighting in the picture was because it makes these characters seem to have two sides to them. John, with being apart of the Nazi party while his best friend is Jewish but also being a decently “good” guy throughout the movie. Anne, with being a “good” person by sticking by John’s side through everything and seeming to be a kind-hearted individual but also turning on John when she calls the police when Maurice shows up at the house looking for help. Both the characters are caught between these two sides.

Finally, the reason I don’t think the movie Good was distributed in the United States was maybe because of how the Nazis were portrayed in the film. The movie showed how the Nazis lived their day-to-day lives, going to parties and acting like nothing is wrong. Watching this movie from the Nazi point of view, it almost wants you to believe there is nothing wrong with how they treated Jews. Americans view Nazis as horrible people for what they have done, but this movie makes it seem like they are normal human beings that are doing nothing wrong. This also could be why the movie is titled Good. Maybe the title comes from not only the debate of whether or not John is a good person, but all Nazis together.