As we recover from the excess and emotions of another holiday season and enter the first week of the new year, watching a movie entitled Good Grief—about a man who is dealing with the unexpected death of his husband—might not seem like the obvious uplifting choice to add to your Netflix queue. But we recommend that you put it right to the top when it premieres this Friday, January 5th. Coming from the Emmy-winning co-creator and star of Schitt’s Creek, Daniel Levy—making his feature writing and directing debut—the film does have its poignant moments, but there is also plenty of laughter amidst the tears, as Good Grief deals with the subject of intense loss in a fresh, honest, and ultimately hopeful way. There is comfort along with the catharsis, partly because of the close friendships at the heart of the film. They might be imperfect, but when the world shatters for London-dwelling artist Marc (Levy), he has his two best friends, Sophie (Oscar-nominee Ruth Negga) and Thomas (Emmy-nominee Himesh Patel), to turn to.
Ahead of Good Grief launching on Netflix, Daniel Levy, Ruth Negga, and Himesh Patel spoke exclusively with The Queer Review’s editor James Kleinmann about the importance of them getting to spend time with one another before the shoot to help establish their intimate on-screen relationships and the film’s approach to grief.
James Kleinmann, The Queer Review: I feel like I’ve made three new, beautifully flawed and messy, best friends through your characters in this movie. In some ways it’s a love story about their friendship. How much time did you get to spend with each other before the cameras started rolling to help create that palpable on-screen connection that you have?
Himesh Patel: “It was two to four weeks. We got to hang out and go through the script and talk through scenes and develop our characters. We also went away for a weekend together and we did the The Crystal Maze escape room in London and all this stuff which was piles of fun, but also enriched our experience and the characters.”
Daniel Levy: “First of all, I love The Queer Review, so it’s nice to see you! That time was something that I fought really hard for in terms of building in that camaraderie, making sure that we had that intimacy before we started shooting. I didn’t want it to be something that we had to find on set because in order to believe this movie you have to believe these people as very close, old, dear best friends. Putting in that time in advance was so important because I think all of us can attest to the fact that we’ve walked onto film sets before when you have to build that chemistry instantly with someone you’ve maybe met once in a makeup truck or something. So it was important to give us that time so that we had the the emotional and physical intimacy to be able to play and not have to worry about any of that building tissue.”
Is there anything that you wanted to add Ruth? Who was the best at karaoke?!
Ruth Negga: “Well, it wouldn’t have been me!”
Daniel: “You were the most passionate!”
Ruth: “When you’ve got no talent, you have to be passionate, you don’t have much choice! But look, you’re playing friends and you have to have that easy way of being in one another’s space and you can’t be too polite. You need to wear each other like an old comforting cardigan and I think we managed to do that pretty well.”
Daniel: “I thought you were going to say like an old boot!”
Ruth: “Yes, like an old boot, or whatever item you choose! Something that’s familiar and loved and comfortable. We had a ball really, to be fair.”
Well, it really comes across. On film and TV, we quite frequently get a funeral scene by a graveside or in a church, but it is very rare that death is as central to the narrative as it is here. It’s even in the title, which is a wonderful title by the way. Daniel, as a writer, director, and actor, what did you want to explore about grief?
Daniel: “I hope that audience members watching the movie, who might be going through something similar, feel comforted by it. I hope that they feel comforted by the fact that my character doesn’t know how to do it properly and is struggling through it and is asking questions of himself and others. I think movies have romanticized this idea of how we should feel grief; the sliding down the wall crying moment. It doesn’t happen like that. It doesn’t happen in our bodies like that, or for some of us it doesn’t happen like that.”
“To show a slightly different take on it, one that was a little bit more confused, one that was a little bit more meandering in its path to self-discovery, felt truthful and it felt honest. Also, being able to reveal the dynamics of a friendship in the wake of a loss and celebrate how important found family is in recovery and in comfort and ease and support and how necessary our friends are in life was important too. Yes, we have family, but our friendships are a different kind of family that has earned that kind of real estate in a movie.”
Ruth and Himesh, what was your take on Daniel’s exploration of grief through the film?
Ruth: “Touching on the humour in the film, I’m sure that there have been studies done on it and everything, but why do we need to laugh? Why do we need that release? Because it’s a natural painkiller, isn’t it? Crying as well, that catharsis. Why do we need those two things? Because they heal us, they’re part of the healing journey. For me, those two things live side by side, and sometimes uncomfortably so but that’s life, isn’t it? The funeral scene in this film is brilliant because it contains those two things so close to one another and they live quite happily together. I think we forget that life is constantly oscillating between the two and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
Himesh: “I completely agree and that’s what made me really fall in love with the script; that truthfulness and the fact that the story doesn’t lean into any of the stereotypes that we’ve seen when we’re talking about this subject on screen. It felt really honest and truthful and original.”
By James Kleinmann
Daniel Levy’s Good Grief is playing in select theaters now and premieres on Netflix on Friday, January 5th, 2024.
