The Good Boy <img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/>

The Good Boy

This English/Polish co-production is not to be confused with Good Boy, a dog-based horror film, even though in most regions the definite article is removed - it seems only Australia and the UK have it as The Good Boy. To muddy the waters more, in some areas, including the US, Brazil and the Netherlands, it's called Heel, something you might say to a dog.

Anyway, I'll call it THE Good Boy because that's how it's being sold here. It's directed by a Polish guy called Jan Komasa, who's done some features in Poland, and written by first time writer Bartek Bartosik, alongside slightly more established Naqqash Khalid. They've concocted a genre pic that flirts with horror, winks at black comedy and straight up propositions psychological dependency drama.

At the beginning of the film, young scally Tommy (Anson Boon) is a hateable twat, acting 'the big I am' on a night out, drug-fucked and aggro with everyone, until he sets off on his own for more action. Staggering along an empty street, he's abducted and so begins the film proper.

After this Prodigy clip opening, we see Chris (a fantastic performance from Stephen Graham) interview a young woman from Eastern Europe, Rina (Monika Frajczyk), who accepts the sketchy job offer. When she starts work, nominally as a cleaner at the big country house Chris shares with his wife Kathryn (a quietly brilliant Andrea Riseborough), she's shocked to find a man sleeping in the cellar, dog collar around his neck, attached by a chain to the ceiling. Visa circumstances force her to keep mum and take the job, despite all common sense.

Here's where the film begins to teeter. It's set up for Rina to play a large part in proceedings but it gradually becomes clear that she's in the film as a plot device only. Short of giving it all away, I'll just say that her role is an embodied Deus Ex Machina, and the subplot that deals with her character is a functional stretch to say the least.

There are other elliptical choices that have the viewer wondering if it's design or competence - what does Chris do for work?, How did they get this huge mansion?, Does the son Jonathan (Kit Rakusen) actually go to school (he has homework)?, Who's Charlie?, and so on. The involvement of filmic polymath Jerzy Skolimowski and legendary producer Jeremy Thomas shows that it's in good hands production-wise, so I'm going to say this is all planned, but it's still a bit unsatisfying.

The big question is what this film is trying to say about the relationship between captive and captor. Is it just another cod-psychology attempt to investigate Stockholm Syndrome, or a deeper essay on generational and social clashes? I think that in spite of it's missteps, this is a bold stab at showing a modern England, even if it does seem to normalise psychopaths. Welcome to 2026?

The Good Boy opens at the Luna cinemas from July 2nd.

See also:

Tommy's treatment is reminiscent of Alex's in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971), producer Skolimowski made an endearingly sombre donkey film called Eo (2022), and Stephen Graham played another father in the streaming series Adolescence (2025), created by Graham, Jack Thorne and Philip Barantini.

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