I refuse to watch Zach Braff's torture p*rn
The film co-produced with and starring his ex Florence Pugh debuted yesterday
A tale as old as time: the mediocre but well-connected dude sinks his teeth into the up-and-coming starlet and clings on for dear life to her talent while dismissing her as a human being. It rubbed me the wrong way initially when Florence Pugh and Zach Braff, of “Scrubs” fame, initially debuted their romance as they were 23 and 44 at the time, back in 2019.
While a 21-year age difference can work sometimes, I think it’s a bit challenging when the youngest individual only has a couple of years on the gap itself, but I recognize that Hollywood is odd. Throughout the pandemic, Zach apparently lost several people close to him, and he processed his grief by writing and creating a screenplay, in which the main character is largely inspired by Florence.
During those COVID years, Florence and Zach’s relationship seemed to dominate headlines and appeared to affect Florence’s wellbeing. She posted defensively about it from time to time and tried to keep their breakup quiet for as long as possible when it arrived in early 2022.
Despite the split, Pugh plays the role she inspired in Braff’s film, Allison, who “is a young woman with a wonderful fiancee, a blossoming career, and supportive family and friends. However, her world crumbles in the blink of an eye when she survives an unimaginable tragedy, emerging from recovery with an opioid addiction and unresolved grief.”
“I wrote ‘A Good Person’ for Florence,” he said. “And because Florence was my partner at the time and… she’s just… I mean, all of her talent! I was like, ‘I’ve gotta write something for her’.”
The LA Times calls Pugh “heartbreaking” in the film while criticizing Braff’s “obvious, melodramatic” choices. Morgan Freeman’s performance is also praised as being “next-level,” and Braff’s vision is given the stamp of being a “haunting slice of real life.”
On the other hand, the Chicago Tribune calls “A Good Person” “a bad movie about some unreal people” that “starts off on the wrong foot and never finds a solid stride.”
Somehow, I don’t feel compelled to watch this torture porn. I don’t feel moved to watch this young woman be the dancing monkey for her ex-boyfriend’s show. I don’t enjoy the idea of seeing her bare her soul for us to tell his story through his fictional version of her, while she continues to tell tabloids she gets a “lumpy throat” when she talks about their breakup.
It upsets me to see that this blossoming actress of a generation is being sucked dry by a dork who is mostly nose and forehead and better known for his friendships with more talented individuals than for talent of his own. And yet, she delivered another “heartbreaking” performance to bring his vision to life, even after he was done with her romantically.
Entertainment news has danced around this without calling it out in so many words, choosing pull quotes pointedly and writing about their strange working relationship. USA TODAY even used the release of the movie to consult a psychologist about when it’s okay to stay friends with an ex and when it’s better not to.
Zach Braff’s last known relationship ended in March of 2014 with Abercrombie & Fitch model Taylor Bagley, who he’d begun dating when she was 21 and he was 33. They dated for five years and two months, meaning he, like Leonardo DiCaprio, has not dated anyone younger than 28. Nice!
A Good Person debuted on Thursday, March 23, and currently has a 65% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 6.5/10 on IMDb. I won’t be seeing it.