The “Good boy” case, Jan Komasa: “Every bond is a chain: you don’t break it, you lengthen it”

After Corpus Christi e The Haterthe Polish director Red Komasa sign with Good boy a new, successful extreme story on the moral drifts of the contemporary West. Set in modern-day England, the film tells the story of Tommy (the up-and-comer Anson Boonalongside Tom Hardy in Mobland), is a wild boy, famous on social media for his car races and self-destructive videos that fuel a toxic and uncontrollable fame.

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Chris (Stephen Graham, Adolescence and much more), a middle-aged activist obsessed with road safety and family morality, who decides to “re-educate” him with brutal methods. He kidnaps him and locks him in the basement of his country house, where he lives with his wife Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough), a depressed soul, and her ten-year-old son, Jonathan, forced to smile out of obedience.

Between physical punishments, humiliations and surreal attempts at domestication, Chris tries to transform Tommy into the model son and ideal brother. The film continually overturns the positions of victim and perpetrator, to the point of suggesting that the one who needs to be “re-educated” is not the boy, but the adult who imprisons him. The film is a disturbing reflection on parenting, moral hypocrisy and violence hidden in good intentions. Good Boy will be released in Italy in 2026 with Minerva Pictures and Filmclub Distribuzione.

Komasa, where did this journey start from?

“The film was not my idea. It was proposed to me by a legend of Polish cinema, Jerzy Skolimowski. I have always been a great admirer of his, I have followed his work for years, and he had seen my film Corpus Christi. Someone had sent him a script to direct, but he felt he no longer understood young people as much as he once did. So he thought to me: ‘You made a film about young people, maybe you could direct it, I’ll produce it’. When he told me this, I thought he was talking about a project of his, and I read the script as if it were a typical Skolimowski film. Then I realized that he wanted me to direct it, while he would be the producer.”

What attracted you most about this story?

“The provocation. We, as artists, liberals, always talk about freedom, freedom of speech, of expression, of thought. And instead this film is a sort of love letter to tyranny. It is uncomfortable, but fascinating. It forces you to ask yourself if freedom is really the absolute value. Perhaps freedom can also lead us to solitude. The film explores precisely this: freedom, imprisonment, control. Every relationship, after all, is a small prison. Even the family is: in the moment you decide to be with someone, you give up a part of your freedom. It’s inevitable. But perhaps the only freedom we really have is to choose the person with whom we share our lives. We are never completely free, because we live in society and are always tied to something.”

You give up part of your freedom, but you receive more in exchange.

“Yes. In exchange you get love, affection, someone who accepts you and sees you. You receive care, but you lose a portion of freedom. But perhaps it is a form of healthy balance.”

What do you think young viewers can take away from this story?

“I hope that not only young people, but in particular them, understand that absolute freedom does not exist. Today everyone defends their borders, their “comfort zone”, but human relationships don’t work like that. It is right to protect ourselves, avoid toxicity, but in doing so we risk forgetting how much we need others. Pretending not to need anyone is a mistake. It is not a weakness to desire the presence of others, it is a healthy and human part of us”.

The film constantly plays with limits: freedom, prison, chains. How did you find the right balance between realism and allegory?

“The film is deliberately absurd: there is a chain, a system of rails on the ceiling to allow him to enlarge the spaces for movement, not only the cellar but then the living room and even the garden. Nothing is realistic, it is a metaphor. An allegory of relationships. In a relationship, or in a family, we must accept that the other needs space. It’s like stretching the chain: you never cut it, you extend it. With children it’s like that: you don’t you never cut the bond, you always lengthen it more. You let them go, maybe to another country, but the bond remains. The chain is not a prison: it is a symbol of connection”

On the other hand, however, there is also the need to protect, to intervene out of love.

“Exactly. It’s a difficult balance: when is it right to intervene in someone’s freedom “for their good”? The film asks precisely this question. Sometimes to help someone you have to invade their freedom, as is done with children. And after all, to some extent, we are all children: even with elderly parents there comes a time when we have to take care of them, even if they don’t want to. It’s a cycle that repeats itself.”

You talked about your children: does this theme also arise from a personal experience?

“Yes. I have two children. My daughter is twenty-four and lives in London, I in Warsaw. I have always had the experience of “stretching the chain”: when she was growing up, I tried to give her more and more freedom, more space. Now the chain is very long, but it is still there.”

The film has an amazing cast.

“It all started thanks to the producer Jeremy Thomas. Jerzy Skolimowski initially wanted to make the film in Polish, but I thought it would have a more universal reach in English. Jeremy, who has a long history of collaborating with Skolimowski, read the script and loved it. We rewrote it with the screenwriter Nakash Khalid to give it a more British tone. Then Jeremy involved the great casting director Nina Golda legend in London. With her, and with Skolimowski’s name as producer, it was easier to involve actors like Stephen and Andrea. Nina also sent me the auditions for the two brothers in the film, and among the first I saw Anson Boone and Kit Rakison. They struck me immediately, although — as often happens with directors — I wanted to watch several other candidates before returning to them. In the end I realized that Nina was right: they were perfect.”