REVIEW: As Good as it Gets, Edinburgh Fringe 2024 ★★☆☆☆

As Good as it Gets is a one woman show, a series of vignettes and complaints set to sporadic background music. We follow a young woman through several days wherein she works a temp job, volunteers at a nursing home, and celebrates her birthday.

It’s important to keep this description in mind: The performance plunges us so completely into the mind of this selfish, cynical person with no respect for anything except her own dopamine levels, that we seem to lose sight of the fact we are supposed to view this character as deeply flawed. Through the show, we associate so closely with this character: with her disdain for others, with her bad decisions, and with her all around selfishness, that for me at least, As Good as it Gets became an uncomfortable viewing experience.

This character lacks enough personality traits to flesh her out, she has no vulnerabilities to latch onto and make her feel real; nothing to really ground her in reality and remind the audience that there is a bigger world out there than her and her sardonic perspective.  

For the majority of the show, As Good as it Gets provided no relief in its narrative,  No relief resulted in a joyless viewing experience, and my suspension of belief suffered: Little things, such as confusing blocking, clichéd innuendos, or incorrect terminology really bothered me when normally I’d give such things a pass.

And then came the two scenes that changed my mind about how I felt. In the first scene, the main character witnesses a street accident and, without really knowing why, goes to comfort the victim. She goes to collect his spilt belongings that he seems extremely worried about but, when she’s collected them and is ready to run back to the ambulance to give them to him, she just… doesn’t.  In the second scene, following quickly upon the accident scene, she calls her mother and says two words we’d never expect this character to say: “I’m sorry”.

This to me, demonstrates a hint of what was needed so badly in this play: a dose of reality. Throughout the whole show, I was praying for the character to show a little bit of empathy, to see the world as something other than a failed joke: to be grounded in reality. Those scenes delivered that, even if the moments were brief and ambiguous.  For a moment, the character was part of a whole, instead of isolated in her own miserable point of view. 

It’s debatable as to whether these scenes are played with the gravity needed to portray the paradigm shift that the show was trying to portray. The writing and performance both could have been stronger for those scenes to play the part in the show that I believe they were meant to play. To quote the show’s description, we are supposed to see “the threads of (the character’s) life unravel” through moments like these. These two scenes feel a bit more like a blip of consciousness than a true unravelling… but I’m glad they were there. For that As Good as it Gets earned my respect.

Recommended Drink: Pair this with vodka mixed with the cheapest stuff you can find. You’re not trying to be classy here. You are just trying to get drunk as fast as possible and take a break from this crazy world.

Catch As Good as it Gets until the 24th of August (not the 18th) at Greenside @ George Street in Mint Studio Tickets are available through the EdFringe Box Office.