Stephen Graham has given us fabulous performances recently, as ever, in the likes of Adolescence and A Thousand Blows – but his next role will take him to new, darker depths.
The acclaimed actor can next be seen in creepy-yet-compelling thriller The Good Boy, opposite Anson Boon and Andrea Riseborough, which has finally received a UK release date.
The Good Boy delves into the mind games that ensue when a seemingly respectable married couple (Emmy and Golden Globe winner Graham and Oscar nominee Riseborough) chain up an obnoxious tearaway youth, Tommy (Boon, MobLand), in their basement in order to teach him family values. As you do.
But as he undergoes training for his new role as a good boy, is he learning lessons or manipulating his captors?
The film’s official synopsis promises that it ‘needs to be seen to be believed’ after it first screened at TIFF and then the London Film Festival in October.
Now fans will be able to judge for themselves if The Good Boy – formally known as Good Boy, which confused fans of the recent canine-starring horror – lives up to the twisted hype.
Signature Entertainment has confirmed this indie gem will be released in UK and Irish cinemas on March 20.
It will also be released in the US by Magnolia Pictures under the alternate title, Heel.
The Jan Komasa-directed flick is currently sitting on an impressive 94% score from 18 critics on review aggregator platform Rotten Tomatoes.
Its performances have been praised as ‘doggone exceptional’ while the film itself has been compared to ‘an early Yorgos Lanthimos’, the master of the unusual and weird.
‘It’s a sick premise that only gets sicker, but sometimes sickness in the cure. Good Boy is tonally unique,’ praised The Standard’s review, while Flickering Myth admired it as ‘relentlessly bleak ‘fun’ and twisty-turny throughout’.
The Good Boy has also been described as a ‘wickedly strange, psychologically rich fairy tale’ and simply ‘messed up’.
Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian called the movie a ‘Kubrickian absurdist nightmare’ in a four-star review, while Digital Spy’s five-star rave described a ‘compelling genre blend of dark thriller, absurdist comedy and thought-provoking drama that you won’t be able to look away from’.
While it’s a deeply uncomfortable premise, The Good Boy’s pitch-dark humour also keeps viewers on side, mining that bonkers scenario for its rich vein of insane comedy – be that from Boon’s swagger as Tommy or Graham’s quiet and polite menace as his ‘trainer’, Chris.
And let’s not forget about Chris and Kathryn’s young son Jonathan (Kit Rakusen) and his relaxed approach to it all, contrasting with the family’s new housekeeper Rina (Monika Frajczyk), desperate for a job at nearly any cost.
The Good Boy hits UK cinemas on March 20, 2026.
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