Beth (Alexis Bledel) is torn. Tommy (Scott Porter) is the perfect New York boyfriend; he knows how to impress Beth's friends, he's a Wall Street hotshot, and he knows all the right romantic places in New York for unforgettable nights. On the other hand, Daniel (Bryan Greenberg) is a boy scout; a confused nice guy with no self confidence at work or at the bars. In our introduction to him, he brings a senior banker his coffee and change of 63 cents. The senior looks at him like he's an idiot, takes the change and dumps them in the trash. Daniel looks flustered—gosh, the big city elites can literally throw money away!
Does Beth want to be with the man who makes her big dreams come true, or the man who listens to her and likes the same books she reads? I'm a guy, so maybe I just don't know the bachelor pool as well as I could have, but are these really the only two types a girl ever get to choose from? How about choosing between the sexy world-traveled hipster with a bionic heart and the nice yoga instructor with seven illegitimate children? Something to break up this myth that women are trapped between the wealthy and the soulful.
But again, this threeway conflict is irrelevant, anyway, since the story is never about Beth, the modern go-getting New Yorker with all the personality of a SoHo billboard. It's really all about Tommy and his pet project of turning good guy Daniel into a banker with teeth. At one point, Tommy laments the fact that Daniel wears Banana Republic and takes him shopping, turning Daniel from a nondescript guy to an equally nondescript guy. I'm not sure if this scene is meant to be taken seriously, illustrating the shallowness of New York fashion, or if it's just a sight gag riffing on the fact that all bro-ed out white dudes dress identically and delude themselves into thinking they have variety. Either way, I laughed.
There's a moment when I sat down to write this review where I had to pause and think about the extent of what I should be allowed to reveal about the movie. There's a reason why the synopsis for the movie sounds as fresh as a wax museum. It purports the story to be a Manhattanite tale of a modern woman choosing between two guys. It's not. The woman, in fact, is more of an afterthought than a significant character; let alone the main one. The movie doesn't become interesting in the least until after a twisty revelation is made, at which point the story is already drawing near its conclusion. Spoilers, spoilers.
Then I thought: to hell with it. If you don't want to know further about this film (that you probably didn't know about anyway), turn around, backclick away and enjoy the life you had before you followed that bored, half-ass curiosity that led you to this movie. Otherwise, let's discuss the film in all its spoilerific glory, in order to make the most of its merits.
The twist is hinted at by the forced insertion of a discussion between Daniel and Beth about Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, where this movie found its title from (Daniel is also a soldier), and the unreliable narrator. Tommy is the narrator of the movie and the film starts out with him as the main character. The film starts with Beth breaking Tommy's heart to be with another guy and we're supposedly getting the story of why. The difference is that The Good Soldier has a clever thing where the narrator doesn't know the full story of what he's telling the readers, whereas in this movie, Tommy is just a jerk who blatantly and purposefully lies to the audience (his voiceover tells us that he brings a woman home but nothing happens and he's faithful to Beth, but this is revealed to be false later on), for what purpose? To appear sympathetic? It's a bafflingly pointless fourth-wall breaking that's there practically just to be a prank.
Perhaps it's to illustrate how deceptive Tommy is, aligning us with Beth's feelings, but we're not really duped by Tommy; we're duped by writer/director Julio DePietro, who intentionally obscures certain events until it's time for the big twist. The focus of the narrative is too scattered for it to be Tommy's personal agenda. Instead, this is just a one-off gimmick ("Hey, what if the voiceover says one thing, and we show another?") that's applied too little, too late to the story for it to stick. In the end, yes, this is just another story where the rich and successful are shallow and deceitful people, while true love lies in simple folks who appreciate good literature and some cozy mountains away from the big bad city. if only I can believe that the people behind the movie are truly repelled by the shallow things these characters do.
DVD Bonus Features
There's an audio commentary with Alexis Bledel and Julio DePietro. After a fairly awkward beginning, they settle in and DePietro begin to reveal which lines are ad-libbed, which scenes are cut and how certain shots were achieved. It's not terribly interesting, but then again, it's not a film that interesting to talk about, save for the aforementioned duping.
"The Good Guy" is on sale June 22, 2010 and is rated R. Drama. Written and directed by Julio DePietro. Starring Alexis Bledel, Bryan Greenberg, Scott Porter.
