The Good Guy

 
Time Investment: 90 min.
Return on Investment: 45 min.
 
The Good Guy (Roadside Attractions) is a curious film. Set up like a clichéd New York romantic comedy—the characters live in too-perfect apartments, the guys are too nice to girls they like and the supporting cast is just funny enough to not steal scenes from each other—the film and its title are misleading. And purposely so. The Good Guy isn’t actually a romantic comedy at all—it’s an exploration in untrustworthy narrators, a fact that makes it somewhat hard to like.
 
Tommy (Scott Porter) seems like the perfect guy—so perfect he must be gay! He makes big bucks on Wall Street, takes his girlfriend to dates at the Cloisters and even mentors the shy new guy at work, Daniel (Bryan Greenberg), on how to pick up chicks without being an asshole. Little does he know his new mentee is using these skills to steal his girl, Beth (Alexis Bledel), away from him. So why would Beth dump Tommy at her doorstep in the rain at the end? Or is this just how Tommy wants us to see his story?
 
A textbook example of an unreliable narrator, Tommy is actually a master manipulator and total sleazeball, so it’s with awkward closure that Beth and Daniel, perfect for each other, do end up together and Tommy moves on to his next conquest. Is the film’s writer/director (and former banker) Julio DePietro just a New York cynic? A romantic? All of the above? Seems like DePietro’s overachieving film lost its purpose along the way.