Good One

India Donaldson makes a smooth, clever, and captivating indie film debut that I thoroughly enjoyed. In just 90 minutes, she weaves a story about three characters that seems straightforward at first glance, but it's so sharp and engaging that you might not catch the deeper layers unfolding beneath the surface.

Sam (Lily Collias) is a sensible seventeen-year-old gearing up for a camping trip with her dad, his best friend, and his friend's son, who's around her age. When a last-minute argument causes the son to bail, Sam ends up alone with the two older guys on their wilderness adventure in upstate New York. As a grounded young woman on the brink of adulthood, she takes the good-natured teasing from the men in stride, but as the trip goes on, the dynamics shift, revealing more about who these men really are.

Though the two men don't often check in on Sam's feelings, they seem decent enough. Chris has always supported his daughter's queer identity, and she keeps in touch with her girlfriend whenever she can get a signal. Matt tells Sam she's wise beyond her years, calling her a rare "good one" compared to other reckless teens.

Scene by scene, Donaldson skillfully reveals the underlying dynamics, aided by the remarkable performance of Collias. For such a young actress, she brings incredible depth to Sam. As the relationships evolve, her introspection shines through, often conveyed more through her gestures and body language than through dialogue, showcasing a level of confidence and skill that's impressive for her age.

A quiet yet powerful film!

India Donaldson's first feature film, Good One, is a quiet, slow-paced story that trusts viewers to pay attention and recognize important moments, even when it may seem that nothing much is happening. Good One marks the arrival of two notable talents: Donaldson and Lily Colias. Eschewing the typical storytelling signposts and noisy confrontations, the film unspools slowly, with cinematographer Wilson Cameron's keen eye making nature a vital part of the tale.

The dynamic of a planned three-day hike is markedly altered when Matt's son bails at the last minute, leaving 17-year-old Sam to function as a third wheel with her father Chris (a spot-on James Le Gros) and Matt (Danny McCarthy), two middle-aged men in need of more respite than a hike can provide, even with Sam there to reveal wisdom and poise beyond her years.

Not since Jennifer Lawrence's star turn in Debra Granik's Winter's Bone has a young actor so vividly presented a fresh talent to keep an eye on. We will be seeing a lot more of Colias. Le Gros brings a quiet complexity to Chris, bringing to mind his stellar work in Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women. Like Reichardt, Donaldson's film is not flashy, subtly calling attention to the faces of the cast and glory of nature. While Celia Hollander's quality score at times underscores the mood, it is occasionally intrusive when natural sounds and silence would have better served the moment.

Once the small, big thing happens, Matt does not speak again, nor is he seen in the same frame as Sam. Only very briefly is he on screen with Chris. The shots and framing are no accident. The implications for the trio's relationships going forward are suggested with delicacy. The visual storytelling makes for a sumptuous treat on a small scale. For a film in which "very little happens," the events of the hike change all three.

Before writing this, I checked my calendar and half-planned a trip to a nearby bird sanctuary on the upcoming weekend. That is the effect Good One had on me, although the makers had different plans with the way the film moves from being about a trio nature-hiking to one about relationship dynamics. The shift is sudden and it's only then you realise that the writer had subtly hinted it before. You'd be lying if you say you were seeing it coming. All the cosiness the film had created till then goes away but you still stare into the nature and wonder about things. Good One has a good effect on you and I recommend it. Lead actor is terrific and so are the other two actors. Together, they have renewed my hiking plans.

Watched this at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

Wow, 2024 Sundance really had lots of good movies this year because "Good One" really was one of my favorites from the festival. Filmmaker India Donaldson creates a strong debut project with good writing on the themes of generational differences, beautiful camerawork and good performances from the cast members.

Donaldson really captures the essence of nature landscapes, hiking, and conversations between characters and life. The atmosphere, camerawork, and sound designs are relaxing and many of the dialogue moments felt nature and realistic. All of the performances are good and Lily Collias was amazing in her first performance.

This movie really is like a good ASMR or vibe story like something made from Kelly Reichardt. Overall good movie.

I think maybe son "Dylan" (a fleeting appearance from Julian Grady) might have had the right idea when he decides to opt out of his dad's camping trip with his best friend and his daughter. Seems that "Matt" (Danny McCarthy) is having father-son issues amidst a divorce after he strayed with someone quite a bit younger. His travelling companions are lifelong buddy (James Le Gros) and teenage "Sammy" (Lily Collias) who have a more typical relationship. She has known "Matt" for years and for a while their trip, trekking through the beautiful Catskill mountains, seems to pass off amiably enough. They even meet some fellow travellers for some who has been where grandstanding; the tents seems to go up without any slapstick and there's a little teasing about the nature of her relationship with "Jessie". "Matt" however, begins to feel a bit melancholy though as he gradually beings to appreciate that his family is disintegrating and after a revealing conversation with "Sammy" and an even more revealing and wholly inadequate one she has with her father afterwards, it becomes pretty clear that she is not without her own problems and her father has quite a bit of growing up of his own to do. It's a very slowly paced drama this, with most of the dialogue delivered as naturally occurring conversation. That works to an extent as sentences are left unfinished and inferences are made using facial expressions, but what is missing here is any sense of development of these people. We are left to make too many assumptions which rather lets the thing down as the story heads to it's crunch moment. That rather comes out of the blue and seems contrived to make the very point the auteur wants to make despite it not really fitting the profile or behaviour of the characters we had hitherto been walking through the wilderness with. I suppose, without giving the game away, I just don't agree with the fundamental message that the latter stages of the film seem to be trying to convey here and so was ultimately a bit disappointed that what started off as an light-hearted, quite wittily scripted, observation of family became something a little subliminally sinister for the sake of it. It's a gorgeous film to watch and Collias delivers engagingly, too, but films like this risk fuelling a growing misconception of an opportunistic or even predatory male stereotype that most men simply won't accept and isn't actually true.