Oscars 2024: ‘Good Boy’ Director Tom Stuart On Sensitivity and Being a Fellow Superfan of Star Ben Whishaw

There are a few films on this year’s Live Action Short Film shortlist that deal with grief, but Tom Stuart’s Good Boy feels like a warm, gentle embrace. I have been coming back to it ever since I saw it. Stuart has crafted a film that truly walks the tightrope of comedy and drama, and the result is an everlasting impression on your heart.

Starring Ben Whishaw, Good Boy follows Danny, a young man experiencing bad luck with every turn. As he tries to get his life back on track, figures from his past re-appear threaten to steer him in various directions. Through it all, though, Danny can rely on the tenderness of his mum, played by Marion Bailey.

I expressed to Stuart how the depth of personal feeling reminded me of my own experience with grief. People say all the time that grief never goes away, and he re-enforced that idea quite simply.

“I suppose that you learn to work with it or move through the world with it attached to you somehow,” Stuart says. “You get better at acknowledging it.”

Despite the thematic material, Good Boy has an effortless effervescence to it that draws us in. Stuart has paced his film so well that it feels like we are on a jauntiest of treks as Danny attempts to find his right path. The drama then comes in and smashes us back to reality. Stuart isn’t trying to pull the wool over our eyes as much as he is confronting us with the notion that there are some life events that you just can’t avoid.

“That’s been my experience with life, and, maybe it’s a cliché to say it now but I think it’s true–comedy and tragedy live so close side-by-side,” he says. “Even in your bleakest moments, there’s something to laugh or smile about and vice versa. You can be having the best time and then remember something awful, and I think that lends itself to the most authentic communication to be alive. That balance was a constant concern at the front of my mind in both writing and then in filming it. The joy of the edit meant that we could experiment, as well. If we played the comedy too hard in one section, we could lose the pathos. I thought about it endlessly, and it was a constant consideration. I was very lucky to work with a sensitive group of people who kept their eye on it. And all my actors had such taste. I never had to pull them back, and they inherently knew what to do with the script.”

There are many shots that frame Whishaw’s face beautifully. His eyes heavy or his cheeks quivering. I mean it when I say that Ben Whishaw is one of our most underrated criers, but it’s more than that. There is no shying away from Danny’s emotions, because Whishaw doesn’t hide them. He can’t hide them–they live on his face. Was Stuart trying to make a statement about male sensitivity?

“I don’t think that was a conscious decision,” he says, thoughtfully. “I am a sensitive person, and I think that’s a large part of who Ben is–that’s why he’s so good at conveying it on screen. With age, the less of a shit I give about showing that kind of emotion. Ben naturally has that. Part of the joy of working with him is that he can almost not hide it. He’s very curious and had a generous outlook on the world, and he paints every room that he’s in with that. If you point a camera at him, you capture it. He pushes through the boundary of the screen and touches you. That’s what art is here for. It takes off the layers so we can have these shared experiences and know each other better.

I think we are bad, as a culture, when it comes to talking about our feelings. This film is, in my small way, adding to that conversation. It’s going to happen to all of us and devastate us and we are all going to have to find a way through it. The more open and honest we are about the struggle of that, the easier it will be for us when we have to go through it again. And for everyone else. That’s what I am trying to do.”

Stuart was quick to point out that Whishaw rarely gets the opportunity to portray this much physical humor. In the first few moments, when Danny is set to rob a bank to help them financially, he doesn’t know how to hide the weapon he’s selected, and we discussed just how much of a fully physical performer Whishaw can be. He makes it look easy.

“He’s not afraid of looking silly,” Stuart notes.  “Our story has a lot of slapstick humor, but I knew he had it in him. If you’ve got someone like Ben who can hold onto both of those things then my work is done for me. The first thing I saw him in was Perfume. There is a bit where he steps out in his new clothing, and he has this walk. I thought he looked like a newborn calf learning how to walk–it was so right for the character in that moment. Ben can put that physical intelligence into his body, and, with Good Boy, he could make himself gangly and comedic.”

This is Stuart’s debut film, and I spoke with him the day after the shortlists were announced. Good Boy is such a captivating, deserving film, and Stuart is so generous with the audience. He couldn’t contain his excitement.

“This is unbelievable,” Stuart says with an infectious, wide grin. “This is the stuff of dreams.”