Hyde Park Pick: Good Boy

A few examples that spring immediately to mind are:

• The frankly incredible Frisbee Dog Championship that plays out during the entire titles of Flight of the Navigator (1986).
• Reno, the highly trained police dog, who hilariously outranks his new partner, Chuck Norris, in Top Dog (1995).
• Skippy, a wire fox terrier who had multiple film roles in the 1930s & 40s, most notably starring as Asta alongside Myrna Loy and William Powell in The Thin Man (1934) and its six subsequent sequels.
• Lucy, (Kelly Reichardt’s own dog) in her wonderful and melancholic Wendy & Lucy (2008).
• The nuanced performance of a whippet named Xin, which co-star Eddie Peng later adopted, in the poetic canine thriller and Un Certain Regard prize-winner Black Dog (2024).
• The epic journey of a Scottish setter named Bim, searching for his master in the heartbreaking Soviet masterpiece White Bim Black Ear (1977)

This week, we add to this extensive canine canon, the clever ‘dog’s perspective’ supernatural ghost story Good Boy.

Fun fact: did you know that this breed of retrievers have webbed feet? No, me neither!

Fun fact: Indy won the inaugural "Howl of Fame" award at SXSW for his performance.

Indy is a very cute dog, but also astonishing (given that it’s his very first acting role) and offers what is ultimately an affecting and emotional performance that centres a palpable sense of peril, without any (human) words. In fact there is very little dialogue in the film at all and neither is it needed. 

Good Boy in both concept and execution is an ambitious, playful and visually striking film within the modern ghostly film genre and I heartily recommend it as perfectly gripping dog-based autumnal Halloween viewing.

Good Boy is playing from Friday 17th October. Buy your tickets here.

Give yourselves a treat.