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List Price: $14.94 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 39928
Released: April 1, 2008 |
| Our Price: $1.72 |
| Used Price: $1.05 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Penélope Cruz, Martin Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Danny DeVito co-star in this wry look at an obsessed man who will do anything to make his passion-filled dream life a reality. Gary Sheller (Freeman) is caught in a midlife crisis: dead-end job, depressing life and a deteriorating relationship with his girlfriend Dora (Paltrow). That is, until he meets Anna (Cruz), the girl of his dreams. Able to see her only while asleep, Gary seeks out an expert on lucid dreaming techniques (DeVito) who agrees to help Gary carry on the most satisfying relationship of his life. But as Gary continues to shun reality, his waking life troubles only worsen in this illuminating dark comedy.
Description of The Good Night:
A somewhat poignant and sexy dramedy about the power of dreams as both an escape and a path to wisdom, The Good Night stars Martin Freeman (The Office) as Gary, a former pop star-turned-underachieving composer. Scoring commercials produced by his one-time bandmate, Paul (Simon Pegg), and stuck in a dead-end relationship with the prickly Dora (Gwyneth Paltrow), Gary escapes into his dreams, where an exotic beauty (Penelope Cruz) awaits him. Seeking advice on how to guide his dream life toward ever-more thrilling and satisfying experiences, Gary meets the eccentric Mel (Danny DeVito), who teaches a class on the subject but leads a marginal existence of his own. Just when things start getting particularly interesting in Gary's subconscious, he discovers his dream girl exists in the real world as a highly-paid model, whom Paul then casts in a commercial so Gary can meet her. Written and directed by Jake Paltrow, The Good Night is a provocative story about where and how people choose to feel most alive: fulfilling their potential in a world of real possibilities, or living for their unrealized fantasies of what could be. A double-twist ending deepens the complexity of the theme in dark and unexpected ways, and ensures that The Good Night is not a movie easily forgotten after a viewing. --Tom Keogh
The Good Night Reviews:
A Diamond Lost in the Noise of Hollywood Land 
2009-03-15 - I had the pleasure to see 'The Good Night' after waiting almost two years to see it due to limited release. I expected someting interesting, but alas, this film somehow found a place deep inside my heart.
Similar themes have been done from 'Vanilla Sky' to 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', but 'The Good Night' is much more subtle and quiet; it feels more organic and real, winding up to an ending I did not expect, leaving me with emotions I can't quite explain.
Jake's direction is quite brilliant: from using clunky video shots in the 'real' world contrasted by the divinely photographed scenes in the dream sequences, to photographically placing the arguing couples in their own separate 'units' as a visual metaphor. Both the male and female characters look similar, yet differ completely in temperament, signifying the archetypal poles of men and women.
The music was also well chosen, especially the end sequence, invoking the oddest emotions I have felt in a long time.
'The Good Night' is probably one of the most interesting films I have seen in years: a quiet yet endearing script, finished in the most subtle direction.
It is one of those films that will be re-discovered in years to come by sensitive souls, placing it firmly with the likes of Anthony Minghella's and Tom Tykwer's quiet diamonds, lost in the madness of Hollywood Land.
I hope that Jake Paltrow will endure and return; he has much to gift the world...
Intriguing Premise, But Not Developed Well 
2009-01-08 - "The Good Night" opens with one Michel Gondry-like interesting premise; a former pop singer Gary (Martin Freeman), now writing commercial jingles for a living, starts to see his "dream girl" while he is sleeping. She is Anna (Penelope Cruz), literally a perfect girl, or that's what he thinks. While living with his girlfriend Dora (Gwyneth Paltrow), he cannot forget his fantasy girl and finds himself more and more attracted to her. And one day Anna shows up before him, in real life, in the form of a model Melody (Penelope Cruz).
Written and directed Jake Paltrow (Gwyneth's brother, his first feature film), "The Good Night" has the right ingredients to make a great film. Martin Freeman is perfectly cast as the obsessive protagonist facing mid-life crisis. The names here including Gwyneth Paltrow, Danny DeVito (as "sleep specialist"), Simon Pegg and Michael Gambon (cameo) are surely impressive.
But with the film's inconsistent narrative (with its strange "documentary" section with Jarvis Cocker), "The Good Night" fails to develop its story. The film doesn't have any deep insights about our fantasy or dreams and that is fine with me (though that will help). Still most of the characters are not likable (I really like Simon Pegg, but his character was so annoying here). And when the film's story and characters stop developing at the initial stage until the final chapter (that has one unexpected event), something is wrong with it.
Surrealist Dramedy Falls Way Short Due to a Muddy Execution
2008-05-06 - It's pretty obvious that first-time director/screenwriter Jake Paltrow was heavily inspired by Michel Gondry's surreal, off-kilter work in The Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind in making this downbeat 2007 dramedy. Barely in theaters before heading right to DVD, the film works on an intriguing (albeit unoriginal) premise but is then undermined by a muddy execution and unlikable characters despite some nice visuals. The plot concerns put-upon Gary, a TV commercial jingle writer who was once an `80's Britpop star. His professional life has become a drudge as he begrudgingly works with his best pal and former bandmate Paul, who has sold his soul to become a successful advertising executive. Meanwhile, life at home is no picnic since Gary has to suffer from the constant passive-aggressive derision of his frumpy, needling girlfriend Dora.
Into this emotional void, Gary starts to have vivid dreams of a beautiful fantasy woman named Anna, who turns out to have a basis in reality. It's no wonder that Gary seeks the counsel of a "lucid dreaming" expert from New Jersey named Mel who helps him find ways to elongate the dreams for fear of having them evaporate entirely. Once all this is all established, Paltrow lets the film flail around in a series of frustrating scenes that have Gary turning more and more into an emotional zombie. Moreover, the marked contrast between Dora and Anna comes across as overstated with the result being complete indifference toward both women. Paltrow also uses a framing device of documentary-like testimonials from colleagues in Gary's past, a technique that doesn't make sense until the abrupt ending. None of the principal actors are terribly remarkable here except Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) who brings a much-needed energetic brio to the comically unsavory role of Paul. His cutting scenes with Gary are the best the movie offers.
As Gary, Martin Freeman (BBC's The Office, Breaking and Entering) is likeably dweeby at first, though he doesn't make credible his past as a debauched rock star. Danny DeVito merely plays a plot device in his customary matter and not much more as Mel. No matter how gorgeous she is (and she truly is in this film), Penélope Cruz is given short shrift by the script, so much so that her character remains incoherent and incomplete. But ironically, a worse fate befalls the filmmaker's famous sister Gwyneth, who has been so deglamorized as Dora as to render her character nearly unsalvageable. Granted there are some funny, off-the-cuff bits like Dora reacting to Gary's maniacal installation of foam over the bedroom windows by asking if it comes in white or Gary inexplicably reading The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Iraq in bed, but there isn't enough such cleverness to sustain the film. At 93 minutes, it actually feels overlong. The 2008 DVD provides a rather inchoate commentary from Jake Paltrow that is not very insightful.
excellent
2008-05-03 - A very good movie for those who study their dreams and have had lucid dreams. The author knew his stuff.
A Modern Day Fairytale With a Twist 
2008-05-01 - Jake Paltrow's "The Good Night," new to DVD, is a modern day fairytale of sorts primed to resonate with the insomniac in all of us. Paltrow may be principally famous because of his famous parents and superstar sister, whom he casts swimmingly, but he proves with this screenwriting debut that he is the real deal when it comes to writing as well as directing. "The Good Night" is original yet familiar, enigmatic yet straightforward, dark yet comical.
British actor Martin Freeman is Gary Sheller, a disheartened has-been musician writing cheap instrumentals for commercial advertisements in New York City. He lives with his endlessly negative, poisonous girlfriend Dora, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, who only serves to discourage him further. One can sense that both are equally self-loathing, thus resigned to each others' company in lieu of the hardship of single life. Gary stagnates even further while his boss and former bandmate Paul, a sordid, self-absorbed skuzz portrayed by Simon Pegg, seems to get ahead in life with little to no effort.
His anxiety drips into his dreams, and when the gray skies part he's left with Anna, an other-worldly, breathtakingly beautiful woman played by Penelope Cruz. She is lovely, supportive and nurturing - everything that Dora is not. The only problem, however, is that she exists only in Gary's dreams, turning every night into a secret rendezvous. In effort to make sense of it all he turns to Mel, played by the fantastic Danny DeVito. A self-appointed expert on lucid dreaming techniques, he takes Gary on a field trip to a mattress warehouse and warns him to avoid sleeping pills at all costs if he wishes to continue his nightly liaisons.
What makes "The Good Night" particularly endearing is that its new-agey tendencies come across as not only believable but fully relatable. Jake Paltrow transforms New York City into an extension of Gary's dream state, and the results never fail to take unexpected, engaging directions. Freeman makes his protagonist the consummate burned-out everyman seeking a new lease on life, but the script goes much deeper than that. Cruz and Paltrow are outstanding, yet DeVito's presence alone makes the film worth a rental.
Entertaining from the first frame to the last, "The Good Night" is leaps and bounds above standard cookie-cutter fare. With a killer script and a formidable cast that make it all look deceivingly easy, the film charms and amuses in equally generous doses.
It may be a sleeper, but it's no snoozer.
