What the Critics are Getting Wrong about Dan Levy’s ‘Good Grief’

It reveals that we struggle to understand grief and bizarrely want Hollywood to serve up everything with passion and humour

Photo by

It turns out Dan Levy did something very risky with Good Grief, although the choices which he made really shouldn’t have to considered a risk. I would have thought audiences were ready for a film about the subtleties of grief.

Therein lies the biggest problem for Levy — not that we aren’t ready for a film on grief, but that Hollywood has trained audiences not to deal with subtlety. It’s as if we want writers, directors, and actors to do all the work for us.

I watched Good Grief last night and was inspired by Levy’s approach. Out of curiosity, I read a bunch of reviews afterwards that frankly revealed the limitations of critics:

“ …ultimately lacks heft and heart.”

“…Levy’s script, more damningly, can’t quite reconcile grief with the films’ romcom ambitions.”

Some critics seemed to pick up on what Levy was trying to do:

“Good Grief does that rare, beautiful thing: It trusts the audience to pay attention.” — Alissa Wilkinson, The New York Times