No, it doesn’t bite! The dog named Frank is a man who doesn’t like to show his face.
Photo: Blue Finch Films Releasing/24 Images
The young student Sigrid (Katrine Lovise Øpstad Fredriksen) meets the slightly older Christian (Gard Løkke) on a dating app, and it’s a perfect fit, so it’s too good to be true. Christian is very pretty, sweet and a bit shy, but still determined and open. He lives alone on a large property and also shows his feelings. Someone who doesn’t just want sex. The first disturbances arise when Christian introduces Sigrid to his dog Frank. He’s obviously a person on all fours in a fur costume. Frank (Nicolai Narvesen Lied) lives with Christian, eats from the bowl, walks on a leash and makes dog noises. He also likes to be scratched. Christian asks Sigrid to play along. That’s just the way it is with Frank.
The first suspicion, of course: there’s something fetish going on here, maybe Christian and Frank are into kinky dog sex. Sigrid understandably feels the impulse to flee, but then decides to return to the large property: out of curiosity, youthful recklessness, because of the wealth of her new lover and probably also because she has actually already fallen a little in love.
Once you as a viewer have accepted the premise that a person in a dog costume is walking through this scenery, you become very expectant. The film “Good Boy” has to do something with the bizarre image that it established so abruptly and credibly. Nicolai Narvesen Lied plays the dog convincingly – and with enthusiasm. And because Fredriksen and Løkke harmonize so well as a couple, you can understand Sigrid’s decision. Especially since the dog Frank seems to be well behaved.
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The potentially very perverted trio goes to Frank’s parents’ holiday home. Then come the first signs that make the experienced horror film watcher suspicious: handing over your cell phone, no one else there, strange behavior by the central heterosexual male character. However, director Viljar Bøe’s script takes an unpleasant turn in a different way. Which is surprising again. Because after the film has prepared a stage with some acting effort and directorial precision, nothing worth mentioning actually takes place on it. It’s impossible to describe without giving spoilers how “Good Boy” falls apart in its final third, but overall the film seems like one big wasted opportunity.
Which is quite interesting again. Interesting to see how genre standards and the attempt to find a safe exit from one’s story can destroy everything that has been established up to that point. All of this could have been turned into a nice love triangle. Or a jealousy drama, at the end of which Sigrid leads Frank on a leash into the sunrise and runs off with him. Instead, “Good Boy” desexualizes the whole event very quickly and almost hastily and leaves the finale with a series of thriller and horror standards. Run away, hide, fight back. The dog costume fades into the background and everything becomes irrelevant. Maybe it’s fear of your own courage, maybe someone messed with the script after all. Either way, a missed opportunity.
»Good Boy«, Norway 2023. Director and screenplay: Viljar Bøe. With Katrine Lovise Øpstad Fredriksen, Nicolai Narvesen Lied, Gard Løkke. 80 min. In the cinema from today
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