
At its core, Good Bad Things is a simple, quiet tale regarding a universal theme that all of us can relate to. It is about the dichotomy of the inner desire to be appreciated and cherished while desperate for an opportunity to do so, about those who argue that if there is an opportunity to be seen it is better not to be seen at all. The story was brought to life by two friends since childhood Shane D. Stanger, the writer and director, and Danny Kurtzman, the other main character, a character who humorously shares the same name as the actor.
In the movie, Danny runs a small advertising and marketing firm with his best friend and roommate Jason who is as cool as Brett Dier but is more real and warm than your average bro. The last time he had money, but now he is broke and is left with a dating app called Rubi as a possible client that will hopefully bail them all out. We have previously learned that Danny was in a relationship with a girl nicknamed Bianca, a very loving woman and that he is well-liked and respected by many of his ‘friends’. The surrounding people are pleasant and understanding. They don’t mind lifting him up and down the stairs when necessary because he cannot use the escalators.
But his friends binge drink and don’t understand that Danny’s body is built such that it cannot handle many beers. Furthermore, they also do not notice the fact that Danny is always struggling against the situation where he is at the back watching them become more and more casual and romantic with other people thinking to himself that he will always be in the friend zone.
Danny registers on Rubi ‘for research purposes’ but in truth he knows that he may want a girlfriend. He puts up a photo in which only his shoulders are visible because he cuts out the scooter, he creates his profile and, as he confesses to Jason, he swipes some. A reply comes from Madi, a friendly photographer (emotive performance by Jessica Parker Kennedy). After suggesting how far they should go in talking about David’s disability, he clenches all his muscles and brings it up in a reply to Madi. She has shown interest in him so that when he raises the issue of meeting, she can say yes without worrying about it.
In this case, the essential components of a romantic tale are deepened since at this point, disability for Danny is an actual physical embodiment of the dance of intimacy. This is made quite graphic, for example, when Madi first asks him to come join Jason while the two friends with Danny try to model for the underwater photos taken during a “shroomed” Palm Springs skinny dip in which Danny ends up posing naked.
Kurtzman, who not only didn’t take part in any performance or did not see any filming before Stanger asked him to work together had done before, has quite a reflective screen charisma. The particular Danny in the plot has almost no doubts concerning his work but tends to be rather gentle and insecure around people. Show, perform, don’t tell this is how this performer, Kurtzman was able to perform all these nuances for us. Danny’s pals consider themselves very attached and rather in the moment. Yet, Jason who lifts, bathes, and cheers for Danny the friend never actually experiences any of Danny’s ‘the brotherhood’ isolation or the boundary that he sits in between the ‘able-bodied people’.
Stanger and Kurtzman were right to turn Madi into a photographer for the story. To Madi, both her love and her work is to literally capture what others overlook. She is possibly the Psyche figure aiming to catch sight of Cupid’s beauty with a flickering candle in the dark. She finds it appealing the way people with no eyes see, a shape in someone they would deem anti-aesthetic.
Madi, on the other hand, is not hesitant to view Danny as a romantic figure. And as he embraces her view, he evolves as well. At first, he only dons black. However, as he has a moment of tenderness with Madi, Danny uses his power for her, revealing to her his other side; in that, he wears the color of life and resurrection, which is the color green. There is also the reversal of their two names which may hint at their link.
What the script lacks in strength, the performances compensate for, but the opposite is true regarding this aspect of the script. It is the dialogues between Danny and Madi that do not accomplish as much as they are supposed to be designed to convey; the reason why the two of them begin to develop warm feelings for each other. However, the connection between the relationship of Danny and Madi and the introduction to Rubi has been well done, with Danny having given a commendable long monologue after Jason goes wrong with the pitch at the onset. The constant point of interest though is when it first appears that Danny and Madi are experiencing a difficult moment in their relationship, and Dani confides his deepest feelings to his father and starts crying on his father’s shoulder (wonderful Gale Hansen). “I am so frightened,” says Danny. “For things to improve, clearly things have to be different, and that is terrible. What if this is one of those good bad things?” It is something that is difficult to respond to, but this picture is one of those good things.
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