The new film, The Good Boy, starring Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough as a disturbingly strange couple, shares some similarities with Stanley Kubrick’s iconic 1971 film, A Clockwork Orange.
Similar to the movie A Clockwork Orange, this story features a troubled teen who is subjected to a harsh and unusual program meant to change their bad behavior. Instead of the Ludovico Technique, a character named Chris (played by Graham) uses a series of extreme methods to rehabilitate 19-year-old criminal Tommy (Anson Boon) after kidnapping him.
Director Jan Komasa knew his film shared similarities with “A Clockwork Orange.” In an interview with TopMob, he revealed an early draft of the script actually mentioned the novel—the source material for Kubrick’s film. Komasa explained that, in the Polish version, the characters Chris and Kathryn initially gave the character Tommy a copy of “Clockwork Orange” as part of their less intense efforts to help him recover, which included lending him books while he was held captive.
Originally, the story took place in Warsaw, but producer Jeremy Thomas pointed out that would be too obvious. The film has a similar feel to ‘A Clockwork Orange,’ so they decided to change the setting and draw inspiration from different sources instead.
As a fan, I’ve noticed the movie is full of cool references, but instead of directly copying A Clockwork Orange, they’ve pulled inspiration from all over the place! They’ve got stuff from Ray Bradbury’s “The Illustrated Man,” the classic film Kes, and even music by the amazing Frédéric Chopin. Apparently, the director, Komasa, had one main idea connecting all these choices, which I think is really smart.
He explained: “With all this, we wanted to keep it very educational… but in a very twisty way!”
Look, “The Good Boy” is definitely a tough watch – it’s pretty dark and unsettling. But thankfully, it hasn’t caused the kind of uproar “A Clockwork Orange” did back in ’71. Remember how they actually pulled Kubrick’s film from UK cinemas after some violent incidents were linked to it? It’s good this one hasn’t gone that far, even though it’s equally disturbing in its own way.
Even so, this film is a fascinating counterpart to the original, and both Graham and Riseborough deliver truly unsettling performances.
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Authors
Patrick Cremona writes about movies for TopMob, covering new releases in theaters and on streaming platforms. He’s been with the site since October 2019, and during that time has interviewed many famous actors and reviewed all kinds of films.
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2026-03-24 16:35