Sometimes, you see marketing for a film, and then when you actually watch the movie, something feels off about that marketing. That was the case when I watched Good One, the debut feature film from writer and director India Donaldson. While this film does feature a young person who learns a hard truth, billing this as a coming-of-age story feels incredibly reductive.
What Good One is About
Sam (Lily Collias, Palm Trees and Power Lines) and her father, Chris (James Le Gros, Showing Up), are preparing to hike in the Catskills. Their plans originally included Chris’s friend, Matt (Danny McCarthy, Somebody, Somewhere), and his son Dylan (Julian Grady, The Great Pretender), but Dylan is angry with his dad and leaves Sam alone with two middle-aged men.
The film does a great job of establishing the relationship between Sam and Chris as fairly close, with Matt clearly on the outside. Sam and Chris clearly hike with some regularity. They know all of the hacks to make it safe and easy, while Matt overpacks his rucksack while simultaneously forgetting his sleeping bag.
But even with their closeness, you sense some unease. When they connect with three other young men while they are hiking, Chris invites them to their campsite despite his daughter being the only young woman in this group. When Matt is having trouble assembling his tent, Sam is the one tasked with helping him. Sam’s queerness is seen exclusively through the lens of her not bringing home any raucous boys. We see Sam cooking and cleaning up after meals. From the jump, we see Sam being saddled with the role of nurturer and caregiver despite being the child and not the parent.
When the film reaches its climax, Sam has been established as “the good one.” She’s the kid who gets along with her dad, even though he also went through an ugly divorce and is now married to a much younger woman. She is the kid who patiently listens to two grown men complain about their divorces even though she knows the fuller story behind both of them. She is the kid who doesn’t mention that she’s on her period because it would make the adult men uncomfortable. We expect her to be the one to go along to get along, and in the one moment that she challenges that, we hope that being the good one will pay off for her, though, of course, it does not.
Good One isn’t so much a story but rather a character study, and that only works if we can connect with the characters. Fortunately, the trio of Collias, Le Gros, and McCarthy offer up some phenomenal performances that give us deep and very human characters. Le Gros and McCarthy do an exceptional job of playing middle-aged dads who are affable enough that even when they’re talking about their families falling apart, we can see that they do care about their kids. They might be selfish, they might be clueless, but they aren’t wholly unsympathetic characters.
Ultimately, however, this film lives and dies by Collias’s performance, and she is absolute perfection in her role as Sam. The nuance in her performance is spectacular. Her need to make everyone comfortable all the time and then being denied that comfort when she needs it is portrayed not through huge moments of ACTING but through her subtle facial expressions, body language, and small lines of dialogue. Collias is a relative newcomer to the screen, and I certainly hope that this performance puts her in front of audiences even more.
Credit must also be given to this beautiful script from Donaldson. Whatever her lived experience, she fully captures the tension between many young women and their fathers and the moments that can either draw them closer together or push them further apart. She creates a scenario that feels lived in and raw without adding any unnecessary drama. It is a masterclass in minimalistic writing that is packed with emotion and meaning.
The cinematography from Wilson Cameron also does an impressive job of conveying both a sense of claustrophobia and absolute freedom. Shooting in the Catskills provided a beautiful backdrop for this story, but the way it was shot helps support the emotional journey that the characters embark upon.
Final thoughts on this India Donaldson film
At the top, I said that it is reductive to classify Good One as a coming-of-age story, and I stand by that. Instead, this is a story about a young woman coming-of-understanding. Sam goes into the woods as a young woman who understands much about how to keep the peace for the men in her life, but less about how to create space for her own peace. Sam goes into the woods as a good one and she comes out of the woods as a good one. But the person she chooses to be good for is herself.
Good One is now playing in limited theaters.
Learn more about Good One, including how to get tickets, at the Metrograph site for the film.
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