The Good Grief Trailer Teases Schitt's Creek Creator Dan Levy's Tearjerking Netflix Movie
After Dan Levy first created "Schitt's Creek" back in 2015, he and the Television Gods rested on the seventh day, looked back at the game-changing series, and declared that it was good. Since its finale in 2020 left fans itching for more, however, Levy has attempted to fill that hole by staying inordinately busy. He soon lined up a new animated series called "Standing Up," he's maintained a steady presence on the other side of the camera through appearances in HBO's "The Idol" and Netflix's "Sex Education" (sandwiched in between a cameo in Disney's "Haunted Mansion" remake), and he's now ready to unleash his feature film debut as writer and director with "Good Grief."
As the first major project coming out of his lucrative deal with Netflix, "Good Grief" promises to tell a deeply moving and heartfelt story all about — you guessed it — processing grief. If the moody music, thousand-yard forlorn gazes into the middle distance, and tough conversations with generally supportive friends sprinkled throughout the new trailer released today wasn't enough, the official synopsis pretty much spells out exactly what viewers can expect from the upcoming movie starring Levy, Luke Evans, Himesh Patel, and Ruth Negga:
Marc (Daniel Levy) was content living in the shadow of his larger-than-life husband, Oliver (Luke Evans). But when Oliver unexpectedly dies, Marc's world shatters, sending him and his two best friends, Sophie (Ruth Negga) and Thomas (Himesh Patel), on a soul-searching trip to Paris that reveals some hard truths they each needed to face. "Good Grief" marks Levy's debut as a feature-film writer and director.
Once you make sure you have a tissue or two on hand, you can check out the trailer above!
Dan Levy returns with Good Grief
It's easy to feel cynical about the latest tearjerker from Netflix, admittedly, but we're going to go out on a limb, channel our inner Norman Rockwell meme, and propose that the newest Dan Levy production is something worth getting excited about. "Good Grief" might bear all the hallmarks of countless grief-stricken melodramas in years past (including an impromptu getaway to the most romantic and melancholy of all European cities, Paris!), but it's also true that marketing for these sorts of films can be notoriously tricky. Whatever the case, Levy has lined up an absolutely stacked cast of talented character actors to bring this story to life — one that, as Levy himself explained to Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview, comes from a deeply personal place with ties to loss he experienced during the pandemic. As he put it:
"I lost my grandmother toward the tail end of the pandemic, and I was in a very strange headspace in terms of feeling the weight and the profound sense of tragedy of what the COVID pandemic had done for all of us, while at the same time trying to honor the passing of someone who meant so much to me. It was hard for me to feel the specificity of loss when all I was feeling was grief for so long. It was that conversation that really expedited the concept of the movie."
Levy's also quick to dispute the notion that this is a rom-com, instead describing "Good Grief" as "a drama or a dramedy." That tone is certainly evident in the footage, but viewers will be able to decide for themselves soon enough.
"Good Grief" comes to select theaters on December 29, 2023 ahead of its Netflix debut on January 5, 2024.