The Good Night review

Simon Pegg, Martin Freeman, Danny De Vito and – get this – Jarvis Cocker in a romcom of sad-sack maledom could be fail-safe fun-time. Sadly, Gwyneth’s tyro-director brother Jake Paltrow grabs more than he can handle here. Freeman is an ex-pop star reduced to ad-jingle duty with a feckless ex-bandmate (Pegg); Gwyn is the moaning missus who drives him to dirty dreams of Penélope Cruz. The problems start there: while the blokes are affable enough, Paltrow and Cruz are ill-used as harridan and horn-pot respectively. Indeed, purpose splinters awkwardly everywhere. As a comedy of male delusion, The Good Night seems to shrink from its flimsy dramatic subtexts; as a probing of dream and reality in love, its pretensions to depth suggest a neutered comedic courage: Woody Allen-lite. How did this script secure that cast?