Why I love Dan Levy’s Good Grief movie

Photo via YouTube and Netflix

Recently, a family member commented that there was a movie coming out that had three of my favorite things. My social media tends to be an echo chamber of my interests and so I already knew about the upcoming movie, written by and starring Dan Levy, called Good Grief. So, I said that two were grief and queerness, but I could not figure out the third. They reminded me that it also featured Paris, one of my favorite cities in the world.

I was clearly predisposed to like this movie.

Now that I have watched it, I want to shout out my kudos to Dan Levy for this movie. Does it portray grief for everyone? Absolutely not. For one thing, the main characters are wealthy, privileged people who live in beautiful places in London and Paris. Their social surroundings are lovely but definitely not everyone’s reality.

But Good Grief shows the complexity of pain, confusion, and tears beautifully. While those are the usual signifiers of grief, this movie also avoids the usual popular culture trap of outdated ideas about grief. What I particularly loved about the movie is that it shows many emotions occurring months after the death. Films that show grief often make it seem that grief will be over in a short time. Most of this movie revolves around the one-year anniversary of the death and goes well beyond that to an unspecified time. No one ever intimates that grief needs to end.

It is also moving how Good Grief demonstrates the power of friendship in loss. Marcus, Dan Levy’s character, has two friends who are there for him throughout. He also has a wise financial advisor; the scene with her talking about her own grief is one of my favourites.

I also appreciate that the film is about queer grief without centering the issue. There is little scholarship on grief that does not follow heteronormative and cisgender expectations. And too often in popular culture the queerness becomes the issue. In Good Grief, it is grief that happens to be about a man whose husband dies.

Above all, what I love about the movie is that it is adding breadth and depth to the conversation about grief. In interviews about the film, Dan Levy has talked about his inspiration coming from the deaths of important people in his life as well as the death of his dog.

I think and talk a lot of about grief. I am aware that is not true for everyone. In a grief literate world there will be more movies like this one. I am so glad to have Good Grief contribute to the conversation.

My family member was right: I did love it.