The Safdie Brothers and Good Time: Run Connie Run

 

Run Connie Run could have been the title of the film Good Time. The Safdie brothers’ movie is tension at its peak, pure adrenaline, and it already displayed their characteristic style, which they would develop even further in Uncut Gems and in Marty Supreme (in the latter, Josh works alone, without Benny, who would go on to make the failed The Smashing Machine).

After the massive success of Twilight, Robert Pattinson urgently sought to distance himself from pretty boy roles that only required posing. He solved it by teaming up with one of the most disruptive filmmakers in history, the father of body horror, the Canadian David Cronenberg. The second step was approaching the Safdie brothers, who wrote Good Time with him in mind as Connie Nikas, the protagonist who runs like a madman through the night in brutal Queens. What followed is pure Safdie: frenetic rhythm, improvisation/structure, and survival, exactly what Pattinson needed at that moment.

The influences are obvious and expected: the cinema of Martin Scorsese, Abel Ferrara, and Sidney Lumet. Hardcore 1970s New York. Connie’s counterpart is played by Benny Safdie, who portrays the disabled brother who, after a failed robbery, first ends up in prison and then in a psychiatric ward. The film’s elements are clear: a robbery that goes wrong, the prison system, Connie’s desperate race to fix the impossible in a single night, and the uncomfortable conclusion of Benny’s character in therapy.

One appreciates the powerful presence of one of the greatest actresses in history, Jennifer Jason Leigh, even in a very small role. For a story that carries part of the (indirect, via Scorsese) influence of Godard’s transgressive cinema, it is surprising to witness a highly violent work with no guns. Pure human nature is more than enough. The Safdies equally draw on the diaries of former prisoners, streetwear clothing, images inspired by Francis Bacon paintings or Nan Goldin photographs, and the mind blowing electronic music of Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never), who injects doses of anxiety into the finished film.

Pattinson emerges from the movie transformed, literally ready to become the powerhouse of auteur cinema he would later be, working with Robert Eggers, Christopher Nolan, Bong Joon-ho, and Denis Villeneuve. The Safdies leave Good Time ready to make one of their best films (and one of my favorites), Uncut Gems. Ready afterward for each to try his luck with his own movies. And the world of cinema was never the same again.