The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg

The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg is a new courtroom drama, written and directed by Doug Bremner. Apparently inspired by a true-life case, the film begins with a mother (Hannah Fierman) and son. The son has acne and is taking a drug called carinaderm to treat it. A truly harrowing and uncomfortable scene then follows in which the mother discovers that her son has committed suicide. She then seeks out any kind of evidence that may explain what caused this tragic event. Andy Evans stars as the psychiatrist Jack Forteo who brings the case to the fore, following the research proposal by Fierman’s character, and whose research into the effects of the drug on teenagers serves as the main dramatic crux of the story. This is an ambitious movie with a great many strong elements, but it doesn’t always succeed in being the hard-hitting docudrama it perhaps sets out to be.

Taken in full, this is a successful piece of storytelling, and one which is also visually and audibly refined. However, the opening scene I’ve just described is one of a couple examples of scenes whose dramatic intentions outreach the film’s tonal ability. To explain, most of this film is a conventional talky movie, with a mainstream feel and slightly heightened characters (despite the based-on-real-life preface). This unfortunately means that the traumatic opening and deeply serious subject-matter lacks the required grounded feel; or, at the very least, then clashes with scenes that are relatively playful. Just to get the other negatives out the way before we delve into the positives, there is a surplus of drone shots and generic-sounding electronic background music. These things sadly pull the work down into modern TV-movie territory and, again, this demonstrates a slight inconsistency of tone.

As I alluded to earlier, the cinematography and sound is sturdy and operating at a high level. In terms of the visual arrangements, there’s a really pleasing usage of dolly shots which an audience is bound to find both stylistically immersive and technically impressive for a relatively low-budget production. The director of photography also showcases great control over the imagery in terms of lighting and movement. Nothing is especially showy or colourful, but it does have that slightly cold, omniscient Fincher-esque look about it which suits the narrative well for the most part. And the audio recording is as good as it gets; it’s simply the choice and placing of the music that this critic takes issue with.

The performances are all incredibly enjoyable, and all of a fairly similar register which is a sign of good direction as well as good actors. Although, the performances are slightly unusual for this kind of story, for they have lighter aspects, cartoonish accents, and are heavily made up to look like their characters. Yet, it all adds to the richness of the film, and maybe the characters need to be more fun to diffuse the intense tension of the plot.

Very much evoking and drawing heavily from many of this critic’s favourite films of all time – specifically The Insider and Dark Waters – we're certainly reminded of how involving a good legal drama can be when directed by someone who truly cares about the genre.