The Dark Psychological Thriller That Shows a Completely Unrecognizable Side of Stephen Graham as He Plays a Bizarre Man Who Kidnaps a 19-Year-Old in a Twisted Attempt to Reform Him and Delivers One of the Most Unsettling Performances of His Career
Stephen Graham is back on our screens next month in the long-awaited Peaky Blinders movie, but it’s another movie of his coming out in March that is set to show you a side we’ve never seen before.
The Good Boy sees Graham play Chris who abducts 19-year-old hooligan Tommy (Anson Boon) with the intention of reforming Tommy’s unruly behaviour, attempting to make him understand the error of his ways.
If it sounds like a classic thriller, The Good Boy – known as Heel in the US – is anything but. As Digital Spy said in our five-star review of the movie from its BFI London Film Festival premiere, the “compelling” thriller is unlike anything you’ll see this year.
But don’t just take our word for it as Stephen Graham thinks the same.
Appearing on The Graham Norton Show, he said: “It is really a strange little film. It’s weird, but good weird. It has a wonderful script, and I play a great character. He is bizarre and very different to anyone I normally play.”
Directed by Jan Komasa in his English-language debut, The Good Boy also stars Andrea Riseborough as Chris’s wife Kathryn who helps him in his twisted mission, Kit Rakusen as their son Jonathan and Monika Frajczyk as their new housekeeper Rina.
As revealed exclusively by Digital Spy last month alongside the excellent first trailer for the thriller, The Good Boy is released in UK and Irish cinemas on Friday 20 March.
It was recently confirmed as the opening movie of this year’s Manchester Film Festival on 19 March.
Ahead of its release, the movie currently stands at a near-perfect 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It was hailed as “heart-stopping” by The Standard, with TheWrap praising the “powerhouse acting abilities of Graham and Boon” and Flickering Myth saying it is “relentlessly bleak ‘fun’ and twisty-turny throughout”.
The Good Boy is exclusively in UK and Irish cinemas from 20 March.