A Good Person review – Florence Pugh lifts unsubtle US addiction drama

Having redeemed the rather silly Don’t Worry Darling through sheer charisma, Florence Pugh is once again called upon to bring her magic to otherwise indifferent material. In Zach Braff’s strident addiction melodrama A Good Person, she plays Allison, a young woman whose life shatters following her involvement in a fatal car accident. Allison has everything going for her: she’s beautiful, musically gifted and adored, in an icky, full-throttle way, by her fiance, Nathan (Chinaza Uche). The only fly in the ointment is Nathan’s conspicuously absent estranged father, Daniel (Morgan Freeman).

Fast-forward a year and Allison is locked in a downward spiral. Her relationship is over, she’s hacking her hair with nail scissors, and she’s addicted to OxyContin. Realising that she needs help, she attends a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, where the first fellow addict she meets is none other than Daniel. The prickly connection between them is persuasive, less so the contrived plotting and manufactured emotional crescendo of the third act.

• In cinemas now/on Sky Cinema from 28 April