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A Good Person | 2023 | R | – 5.5.10
Why is “A Good Person” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “drug abuse, language throughout and some sexual references.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a few kissing scenes and implied sex scenes several of which are between a young man and a 16-year-old girl, a car accident that kills two people, a threat with a gun, many arguments, many scenes of a woman struggling with addiction, and over 100 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.
After a car crash kills two of her friends, a woman (Florence Pugh) struggles with grief, guilt and an addiction to opioids. Also with Morgan Freeman, Celeste O’Connor, Molly Shannon, Chinaza Uche, Zoe Lister-Jones, Nichelle Hines and Toby Onwumere. Directed by Zach Braff. [Running Time: 2:08]
A Good Person SEX/NUDITY 5
– A man enters a room and finds his teenage granddaughter in bed with a young man, and he presses the younger man against the wall by the throat and yells, telling him to leave; we see him wearing boxer briefs (his bare chest and abdomen and legs and back are seen) and the teen girl wears a camisole that reveals cleavage and bare shoulders. A woman lies on a bed wearing underwear that reveals bare buttocks and a T-shirt; a man enters the room, climbs on the bed and kisses her buttock, they talk and she straddles him and they kiss as the scene ends (sex is implied).
► A young man and a teen girl lie in a bed and he kisses her; she pushes him away saying that the whole room is spinning and that she is going to be sick (we do not see her vomit). A man and a woman kiss tenderly and talk about their love for each other in front of people gathered at a party.
► A man at a party tells attendees that if anyone sleeps with a particular man that they should wear multiple condoms. A man describes his first kiss behind a schoolhouse and that the girl left him for someone else that smoked and drove a fast car. A man talks about a place where there is order for everything and says, “The lovers meet.” A man and a woman talk about flirting being part of her job as a pharmaceutical sales rep. A woman describes a man flirting with her while he had his hands in her mouth (he was a dentist). A woman threatens another woman that she will tell people what she did at a bachelorette party if she doesn’t help her; she accuses her of performing a sex act on a dancer. A woman tells a man that his 16-year-old granddaughter is going to have sex, and that he just needs to make sure that she uses protection. A man takes his teen granddaughter to the doctor to get a prescription for birth control. A man and his teen granddaughter awkwardly talk about birth control and sex in a few scenes.
► Women wear low-cut dresses that reveal cleavage. A woman wears a T-shirt that shows the outline of her nipples through the fabric. A teen girl wears a cropped top that reveals her bare abdomen. A teen girl wears a tight-fitting and low-cut dress that reveals cleavage, bare shoulders and her legs to the upper thighs.
A Good Person VIOLENCE/GORE 5
– A woman looks at her phone while driving and swerves as a piece of construction machinery backs into the path of traffic; we see flashbacks to this moment a few times and hear glass shattering as the people in the car are thrown and airbags deploy (we understand that two people in the car were killed).
► A man takes a gun out of a lockbox, kicks a door open and threatens a young man. A man punches a young man in the face (we do not see blood or an injury). A woman and her mother argue in several scenes about the first woman needing pain medication and her mother refusing to get her more pills saying that her doctors will not refill her prescription; one scene shows them struggling in the bathroom as the mother flushes pills down the toilet and one of them slams against a cabinet breaking the glass and falling on the floor moaning and we see blood on her elbow later. A man enters a room and finds his teenage granddaughter in bed with a young man; the man presses the younger man against the wall by the throat and yells telling him to leave while threatening to cut off a part of his body if he ever sees him again (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details) and a woman outside the house sprays the young man with a garden hose as she yells at him.
► Two teen girls on a soccer field argue and shove each other; one calls the other names and teases her for not having a mother and one punches the other and she falls to the ground. A woman argues with a pharmacist to give her drugs for pain and leaves the store angrily when she is denied (she steals something as she leaves). A woman puts many pills in her mouth at once (presumably contemplating suicide), and then spits them into the sink and washes them down the drain. Police enter a hospital room asking for a blood draw from an injured woman; they tell her that two people died in the crash that injured her. A woman is shown in a hospital bed with a bandage on her head and bruises and a cut on her forehead; she complains of pain. People panic when they cannot find a teen girl and a woman; they use a phone app to track the teen’s phone and find her passed out at a party.
► A man yells at a woman and blames her for taking away his daughter after a car accident. A woman threatens another woman that she will tell people what she did at a bachelorette party if she doesn’t help her; she accuses her of performing a sex act on a dancer and the two women argue. School administration members tell a man that his granddaughter will be expelled if she doesn’t change her behavior. A man describes drinking until he blacked out and beating his young son so badly that he lost the hearing in one ear. A teen girl yells, “I hate you” at her grandfather in a few scenes. A man says that his father was passed out drunk in the backyard and covered with snow when he returned from the Vietnam War. A woman becomes upset when she hears that her former fiancé is dating someone else. A woman describes another woman being punched in the face by a shoplifter. A man says that he used to drink whiskey until he blacked out. A woman says that her father left her and her mother and started a whole new family. A woman describes people struggling with addiction and says, “Some beat it and some are dead.” A woman describes using drugs that make her numb and that without them she wants to die. A teen girl says that her school was having an “active shooter drill.” A teen girl asks a woman what she is addicted to. A woman says that her daughter is likely saying, “You’re drunk again.” People gather and grieve at a memorial.
► A woman lies on a flight of stairs and sits up to vomit (we hear retching and see goo splatter on the floor). A woman cuts her own hair while watching an instructional video. A woman thrashes in bed, apparently going through drug withdrawal. The screen spins and becomes blurry after a woman snorts a drug.
A Good Person LANGUAGE 10
– About 103 F-words and its derivatives, 13 sexual references, 20 scatological terms, 5 anatomical terms, 19 mild obscenities, 2 derogatory terms for gay people, name-calling (nuts, dork, sorry little pill junkie, waste of a soul, insane, pig sty, crazy, junkie, scared, weak, weird, fragile, broken, lost, coward, selfish, popular, grown-ups, statutory rapist, Jersey trash, sneaky, fake, duplicitous), exclamations (shut-up, come on, calm the [F-word deleted] down, leave me alone, oh my goodness), 2 religious profanities (GD), 15 religious exclamations (e.g. thank God, God, Holy [scatological term deleted], oh my God, for the love of God, you get to play God, people recite the “Serenity Prayer” in an AA meeting). | profanity glossary |
A Good Person SUBSTANCE USE
– A woman and two men smoke heroin outside a bar, a woman puts many pills in her mouth at once (presumably contemplating suicide) and then spits them into the sink and washes them down the drain, a woman buys drugs at a party and snorts them, a woman says that she is “so high” from a gummy that a man gave her and she asks what was in it, a woman in a hospital bed complains of pain and another woman tries to administer more morphine from an IV, a woman asks two men in a bar if they can get her drugs, a woman bites a piece from a pain pill, a woman snorts crushed up pain pills, and a woman guzzles from a bottle of liquid medicine (probably cough medicine) and falls asleep on a bathroom floor. People drink wine at an engagement party and one woman says that she is drunk, a woman drinks a cup of coffee spiked with tequila, people drink in a bar and a woman drinks several shots of tequila, a woman drinks glasses of wine in several scenes throughout the movie and her daughter accuses her of drinking a lot, a man reaches for a bottle of whiskey hidden in a china cabinet in a few scenes, a man says that he used to drink whiskey until he blacked out, and a man at a party tells attendees to drink, smoke and be merry. A woman smokes cigarettes in many scenes throughout the movie and we see ashtrays filled with butts, and a man says that someone else smoked Camels.
A Good Person DISCUSSION TOPICS
– Opioid addiction, alcoholism, death of loved ones, fatal car crashes, starting over, guilt, grief, forgiveness, Vietnam War, fear, parenting, distracted driving, rehab, hobbyists, order, estranged families, child abuse, abandonment, fate, cruelty, accepting responsibility, sacrifice, hope, bankruptcy, blackmail, Alcoholics Anonymous.
A Good Person MESSAGE
– Circumstances sometimes may make it hard to be a good person.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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