“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, do you know what that means?” A social worker in the Safdie Brothers’ “Good Time” asks that question to Nick (Benny Safdie), a dead-eyed man with a stony, gaping face and who is mentally challenged. The social worker asks a few more questions, and just as he’s making a breakthrough, with Nick even shedding a tear, his loving but unhinged brother Connie (Robert Pattinson) whisks him away.
Connie would’ve done well to hear that age-old proverb. That’s because “Good Time” is a carnival ride careening out of control, a neon-lit trip as one man’s desperate attempts to get his brother out of jail destroys the lives of everyone in his wake. It’s hypnotically chaotic and irresistibly surreal as though we’re seduced by the character’s tragic trial and error as things get worse and worse. Continue reading “Good Time”