Good Boy (2022) is an odd proposition, because it immediately disrupts what you may expect from its most obvious plot elements. With its clean, sumptuous interiors, pleasant and polite cast, and distinctly bloodless approach to its storytelling, it oh-so almost keeps up appearances – but it has a grim, unsettling element which runs right to its core. As such, it’s an engrossing watch, layered with discomfort. In essence, it’s a messed up story about power and privilege, and whilst it decides not to satisfy every question you might wish to ask, it nonetheless does enough to make those questions run around in your head after viewing.
We begin with an as-yet faceless young man preparing a meal, and it’s a very nice meal, too: it has ‘date night’ written all over it, except it turns out that it’s for the young man himself. He’s not totally alone, however: he has a dog, and we see him feeding it. This is the first moment of high strangeness: that isn’t a dog, it’s a man in a dog suit, seemingly remaining in this character throughout the scene. Aside from that, this is a rather beautiful house, teeming with affluence – it just happens to have a dog-man resident in it. But our young man-man, Christian (Gard Løkke) seems to crave more orthodox human company, too.
Scrolling through Tinder after dinner, he finds a young woman called Sigrid who catches his eye: he ‘super likes’ her, perhaps drawn to her tagline, ‘If you have a pulse and two legs, we’re well on our way!’ Humour, or a cavalier approach to standards? Well, one of the two seems to be appealing (and in fact, you could probably easily make a horror film based solely on the responses to an open-season line like that on Tinder). And just like that, they connect, and arrange to meet in person.
Their first date only showcases their different personalities. She’s late, for one; Christian is already sitting there, punctual, and formally dressed. Sigrid (Katrine Lovise Øpstad Fredriksen) rocks up in jogging bottoms, disregards any conventions about who buys what and how, and plays on her phone at the table. It’s not a great start but, gradually, Christian begins to warm up a little. In fact, they end up going back to his place, and the size and style of his home wows her. But the presence of a grown man in a dog suit comes as a hell of a surprise (well, it would, wouldn’t it?) This early spanner in the works disrupts their growing closeness; sadly for Sigrid, it’s her roommate’s revelation about Christian which enables her to overlook his little foibles. She hears Christian out, and their relationship continues. However, this just begs more and more questions, and their unignorable situation develops.
Well, there’s a lot going on in here. But firstly, any expectation that this is going to be either some kind of queasy sexual story, or a torture porn-adjacent affair are thwarted. True, Sigrid looks into the whole idea of ‘puppy play’ as she tries to understand what’s going on, but Christian isn’t involved in this for sexual reasons. Sex and sexuality are present in the film, but not the driving force behind the plot, even where we have a young relationship unfolding: Good Boy wrongfoots the audience in several respects, and this is one of them. Instead of fulfilling our genre expectations, it spends a good deal of time on character, beginning with Christian who, as he prepares for his first date, seems to genuinely care about how it’s going to go. Any notion of a darker side to him is slow to grow: little clues, little reveals in conversation, leave you wondering at first. Then we get a lot more on Sigrid, which not only balances the tale-telling in the film but adds to the growing tension. Yes, some conventional developments pop up, but not until we have a pair of nicely established, diverse characters who contrast with one another, even in the most straightforward of terms. (There’s also, perhaps unavoidably, some subtle, ridiculous/sublime humour in here too.)
Look, there are a few gaps or questions in the film’s plot which remain unanswered come the credits, but does that diminish Good Boy‘s Scandi-minimalist weirdness? Not a jot; it also invites us to ask ourselves when and for what reason we might fling our red flags out of the window, and what roles we might content ourselves to play. When things escalate here, they really escalate, even whilst the film retains its polite, considerate, even stylish veneer. Good pacing, good characterisation and a dialogue-rich script carry this bizarre turn of events along, leaving us with an unsettling story about social and personal control, playing out just (just!) on the right side of plausibility. Good Boy is quite a tough film to shake off, and that’s immensely to the credit of director/writer Viljar Bøe, who has fashioned a strangely engrossing corner of a recognisable universe here.
Good Boy (2022) featured at FrightFest 2023.