‘Good Time’ (2017) ****/*****
Turns out that kid from the ‘Twilight’ movies is a dy-no-mite actor
I’ve heard it said that a willingness to live a parasitic lifestyle is one of the big red flags that marks you as being a crazy person on the psychopath test. If that’s truly the case and not just something that some jerk somewhere made up, then Robert Pattinson’s dirt ball character in Good Times, Connie, is the very definition of a psychopath. That’s basically what this movie is, this doomed, stupid kid’s attempt at sucking whatever he can get out of whatever naive, overly polite marks he can suck into his gross orbit, and how they all get pulled down into doom and despair right alongside of him thanks to his bad decisions. Connie is a born loser — the kind of thug who immediately jumps on any get rich quick scheme or illegal scam he can come up with, without ever taking the time to think any of it through or consider the consequences. That means that he ends up running from the cops a lot, which is why nearly this entire movie exists as an extended chase scene/game of cat and mouse.
Often times Hollywood movies get described as being “thrill rides” in generic ad copy. If that’s how you want to describe those big, loud summer blockbusters, then the best way to describe this movie would be to compare it to one of those rickety old carnival rides that whips you around in circles until you feel sick — the kind that feel like they could lose a rusty bolt at any minute, leading to a calamity that kills everyone riding and whomever happens to be rubbernecking in the immediate area. In this metaphor we the film audience are the rubberneckers getting crushed by faulty carnival equipment. One of the main reasons this movie works so well is that it’s so consistently tense and engaging. It feels dangerous. Every moment is electric. Most movies have to build up tension so that they can eventually reach a big, boiling-over-tea-kettle climax, but somehow Good Time is able to maintain a tone that’s all climax all the time, and it works. It’s never exhausting, it’s never numbing, it’s always got new tricks up its sleeve to keep you interested and uncomfortable. It pokes at you with a metaphorical stick, dangles you off of a metaphorical building, all while an intense synth score pulsates in the background, and the experience is, sorry, thrilling.
To get more specific about the plot, the film starts off with a bank robbery that goes bad and leads to Connie being on the run from the authorities and his brother Nick (co-director Benny Safdie) getting handcuffed to a hospital bed, in the custody of the police, while nursing a severely smashed up face. Nick is mentally handicapped, and is the first character we meet who gets pulled into Connie’s schemes and has his life become poorer for it. One thing you can say about Pattinson’s character is that he’s loyal though, so the rest of the film deals with him breaking his brother out of the hospital and their complicated attempt at avoiding capture that involves a case of mistaken identity, a sleepover with a teenage girl and her grandma, a scavenger hunt in a closed down carnival, an unlikely friendship with an intimidating guard dog, and an acid deal gone bad. It’s all very strange.
Not enough can be said about how good Pattinson is as the foundation of this movie. He’s in pretty much every scene, the camera is pulled in on a closeup of his face more often than not, and there isn’t a single second where he feels anything other than completely authentic as this complex, vile, unforgettable character. He completely disappears into the role, not only creating a living breathing human who you totally believe in, but erasing from your mind any memory you have of him as a celebrity or any negative associations you saddle him with thanks to his earlier work in super-popular and much-derided films. He’s been doing interesting work in smaller, artier movies for a while now, but it’s this role that’s going to solidify his place as one of the great working actors and earn him a whole lot more interesting work going forward. Any cracks about the inert acting in Twilight are going to start feeling old hat real soon — especially considering the fact that his co-star in those movies, Kristen Stewart, has also proved herself as being an interesting performer when given meatier material to sink her teeth into.
The other story here is Safdie. Not only did he direct this picture with his brother, Josh Safdie, he also seriously impresses in his supporting role. He’s playing a mentally handicapped character, which is no small challenge, and at no point does he ever feel like a performer who’s playing at being disabled. Much like Pattinson, he just is his character, and aside from being believable in this character’s skin while he’s on the screen, he’s also able to reach deep places of real emotion that add an important element of heart to the presentation as a whole. Connie is such a despicable character that he could have been alienating. The audience needs someone to care about, somebody to root for in order to have a way into the story, and Nick’s plight is what provides us with that entry point. Safdie is so impressive here that it wouldn’t be surprising to see him picking up supporting actor statues come awards season. Also notable is the always amazing Jennifer Jason Leigh, who brings an impressive amount of nervous energy to a manic side character who seems to be one of Connie’s regular targets of exploitation. She’s been doing so much good work for so long now that it should be clear to everyone what an invaluable treasure she is.
How is Good Time going to be remembered down through the years? It’s definitely too weird and unpleasant for it to get much mainstream success, but weirdos and film nerds are sure to flock to it until it gains a cult status of some degree. The experience of watching this movie is so visceral and so memorable that it’s definitely going to stick around in certain circles. The good circles. What does that mean for the Safdie brothers going forward? Hopefully that smaller companies keep giving them similar budgets to make similarly strange and experimental films and not that some big studio is trying to scoop them up to make a superhero movie or something as we speak. We’ve been losing too many promising young filmmakers to generic franchise bullshit as of late.
