A Very Good Young Man

In 'A Very Good Young Man,' the narrative pivot rests upon a delightfully absurd psychological gambit: the existential anxiety of the 'perfect' fiancé. LeRoy (Bryant Washburn), a paragon of mid-Western rectitude and temperance, finds his impending domesticity threatened not by scandal, but by its very absence. His betrothed, Ruth (Helene Chadwick), influenced by a cynical maternal worldview, posits that a man without a past is a man with an inevitable, explosive future. She demands that LeRoy undergo a self-inflicted baptism of vice—a concentrated sowing of 'wild oats'—before their nuptials can proceed. What follows is a nocturnal odyssey through the demi-monde of 1919 urbanity, as a fundamentally decent man desperately attempts to manufacture a reputation for debauchery. This frantic quest for artificial sin leads him through a gauntlet of misunderstandings, from clandestine meetings to the perceived pursuit of 'fast' women, ultimately questioning whether virtue is a choice or an inescapable character trait. The film functions as a satirical deconstruction of the 'good man' archetype, mocking the social pressures that equate masculinity with a requisite period of moral delinquency.