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The pared-down simplicity and disarming modesty on the surface of India Donaldson’s assured first feature make the gradual exposure, by almost imperceptible degrees, of its protagonist’s quiet emotional depths all the more transfixing. Contrasting the intimacy of its gaze with the expansive natural beauty of its woodlands setting, the drama chronicles a three-day camping trip taken by a 17-year-old woman about to leave the nest for college, with her dad and his best buddy, both of them divorced. Tiny but satisfying, Good One is a strong calling card for the writer-director and for gifted discovery Lily Collias in the central role.
Pretty much a three-hander, the film opens with borderline control-freak New Yorker Chris (James Le Gros) bustling about, making preparations for the weekend away in the Catskills, while his daughter Sam (Collias) packs for the trip, at the same time establishing the mutual intoxication between her and girlfriend Jessie (Sumaya Bouhbal). When Chris and Sam go to pick up the third member of their party, Matt (Danny McCarthy), they witness family drama on the stoop of his building. Hostile to his dad since his parents split, Matt’s teenage son Dylan (Julian Grady) refuses to come along.
That leaves Sam in the unexpected and somewhat unenviable position of being the sole companion to two dudes in their 50s for three days of driving, hiking and wilderness camping. But she remains unfazed, busily texting with Jessie from the back seat while offering an occasional wry comment on the banter between Chris and Matt. Sam wavers between rolling her eyes and humoring them, seemingly settling into a familiar pattern of providing the entertainment that dates back to her childhood.
Relatively little happens in terms of major plot points but Donaldson shows remarkably keen observational skills that draw you in. Chris is all about strictly functional packing while curmudgeonly Matt has loaded his backpack with an inordinate number of inessentials but forgotten important items, sparking light tetchiness between them that amuses Sam. There’s a natural ease to the interactions among the three characters that’s very appealing, with the dynamic shifting just slightly when three college-age guys (Sam Lanier, Eric Yates and Peter McNally) wander along and set up camp beside them for a night.
Casual conversations sketch in the background of Matt and Chris. Self-pitying Matt’s success as an actor on a TV crime series in the early 2000s dried up, forcing him to take sales work and then slipping up in a marital transgression that sent his wife packing. Chris’ marriage to Sam’s mother also fell apart, but he has a new, younger partner and a baby at an age when he’s perhaps beyond the ideal time for fatherhood.
Sam is almost like a mother to these two men with their subtly competitive edge and their fraying friendship. She patiently listens and responds with sensitivity as they prattle on about their disappointments and failings and dreams, prompting them both to regard her as preternaturally wise. She also cooks their campfire noodles and cleans up after meals.
Donaldson is careful not to make the men unsympathetic, but at the same time, Collias’ body language and the telltale flickers across her expressive face suggest that Sam isn’t entirely comfortable with her prescriptive gender role as the designated nurturer and caregiver — the good one, as the title indicates. While it remains between the lines of the screenplay, there’s significance in Sam’s identity as a young queer woman ready to focus on her own relationship and future, not thrilled to be bolstering the fragile egos of two middle-aged men.
It’s more than an hour into the film when a line is crossed, and the director lets the resulting tension resonate over DP Wilson Cameron’s gorgeous Malickian shots of bugs and butterflies and greenery and water cascading over rocks. Sam’s reaction is contained at first, but when her father underreacts, it fractures the harmony between them, which she lets him know via actions, not words, in closing scenes that build quiet power.
There’s a captivating delicacy to Donaldson’s understated approach, echoed in the crystalline poetry of Cameron’s nature images and the chiming notes of Celia Hollander’s gentle score. All three principal performances are expertly synced and feel entirely lived in. But it’s Collias who gives the minimalist character study its lingering emotional amplitude, conveying the volatile inner life of a woman making discoveries not only about her camping companions but also about herself.
