Jan Komasa reveals what drew him out of his comfort zone for ‘Good Boy’

Polish filmmaker Jan Komasa described his latest film Good Boy as “a step outside [his] comfort zone” and a chance to explore the absurd and the grotesque through a darkly comic lens.

Komasa was talking at the Rome Film Festival where the Polish-UK drama is being showcased in official selection. 

Written by Bartek Bartosik and UK screenwriter Naqqash Khalid, Good Boy is produced by Jeremy Thomas and Jerzy Skolimowski for the UK’s Recorded Picture Company (RPC) and Poland’s Skopia Film.

The cast includes Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, Anson Boon and Sebastian Grochowiak. Originally initiated by Skolimowski, the team reached out to Komasa with the script: “I thought it was a film Jerzy wanted to direct and was asking for my opinion on it,” he recalled. “Then he called and said, ‘I want you to direct it and I’ll produce’. But I had already approached it through the cinematic language of Jerzy, imagining how he would have directed it.”

Set in an isolated countryside house, Good Boy follows a 19-year-old petty criminal, played by Boon, who is abducted by a troubled middle-aged couple (Graham and Riseborough). Convinced they can “re-educate” him through discipline, literature and classical music, their unconventional methods blur the line between care and captivity.

Best known for Corpus Christi, Komasa said the collaboration pushed him into new tonal territory. “I had never worked in the realm of dark comedy or absurdity to this extent. I would never imagined to do if I hadn’t read the script the first time imagining it as a Skolimowski film,” he said. “What I could bring to the film that was mine was my work with actors, that’s where I feel most at home.”

The film’s story examines family ties as both shelter and confinement. “Every family creates bonds that can also become chains,” Komasa explained. “We wanted to create a layered environment where viewers could discover their own meanings, a space between freedom and control.”

Much of the plot is about a family and how parents can relate to sons and daughters and ”the redemptive power of culture” as Thomas put it.

“At its heart, it’s a story of redemption, and of passing that renewed humanity to the next generation,” Thomas explained.

Komasa described Good Boy as a metaphor for family relationships, in which affection and control coexist within the same emotional space: “In every relationship, you give up something of yourself in order to build a bond. But sometimes that bond becomes a form of imprisonment.

“Families protect us, but they also hold us back,” Komasa added, noting the recurring motif of chains, both literal and symbolic, and how it reflects the film’s exploration of dependence and power within domestic life.

Riseborough, who plays the film’s central matriarch, described her character as “a woman who consumes all the air in the room with her grief.” Initially paralysed, she “gradually re-arms herself and reclaims control,” she said. “The family dynamic completely reverses.”

Fatherhood

Graham reflected on the recurring theme of fatherhood in his recent roles, including Adolescence. He describing it as “one of the most fascinating relationships to explore on screen”.

He said the subject remains a deeply personal one: “I’ve been a father for 20 years, and I still find it endlessly revealing,” he noted. “Every father I play is different, but each one teaches me something new. I don’t want to say what’s right or wrong, I just want to open a conversation.”

He added that Good Boy approaches parenthood as both responsibility and captivity. “It’s obvious that kidnapping a young man isn’t the way to raise him,” he said with a smile, “but the story shows where that impulse comes from, the desire to connect, even when it’s completely misplaced.”

Graham praised Riseborough’s performance and Komasa’s approach: “Andrea has a rare talent, what she conveys in a single glance would take others pages of dialogue.”

He recalled the first scene shared with her on set, describing it as a turning point in understanding their characters’ dynamic: “It was a kitchen scene, nothing particularly dramatic on paper,” he said, “but Andrea came in with such precision, she had thought through every detail, from the costume to the way she moved. She almost seemed to float.”

He added that the performance revealed to him how power in the story subtly shifts between the two characters.

Good Boy debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, with sales handled by Hanway Fiilms. 

• ‘Hedda’ director Nia DaCosta on the difference between filming in the US and the UK, stepping into the ‘28 Years’ world