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Good One ★★1/2

Availability: Showing in theaters nationally; no streaming at this time. See JustWatch here for future streaming availability, likely not for several months.


Not a Happy Camper


“Fifty-five-year-old guy makes an inappropriate remark to his best friend’s 17-year-old daughter on camping trip” might seem an unfair “pitch” summary of “Good One.” But it’s not that far off.


Lily Collias was the breakout star at Sundance with her role as daughter Sam, above.


As unappealing as that #MeToo moment is, some viewers will welcome it, because until then, about halfway into the 90-minute film—set in the present—the narrative tracks the title of a well-known book about the 1970s, “It Seemed Like Nothing Happened.”


Chris (James Le Gros), has arranged a backpacking excursion into the Upstate New York Catskills with his friend Matt (Danny McCarthy), his daughter Sam (now 19-year-old Lily Collias), and Matt’s son, a disaffected teen who at the last minute refuses to go, leaving just the three to tackle the woods. Dad Chris is the wired, brash, insensitive, obsessive-compulsive packer, impeccably equipped and organized; Matt is sloppy, careless (he forgets his sleeping bag—uh oh!—and doesn’t pick one up even in an out-of-control last minute shopping spree), “unfiltered,” needy, and depressed; daughter Sam is composed, observant, wise (too wise) beyond her years—a woman. (Perhaps to affirm that last point, we three times observe Sam inserting a tampon.)

 

Sam sits in (mostly) quiet, bemused judgment of two not-so-admirable older men.

 

Chris is divorced. Matt’s divorce appears to be in the offing. Both are in mid-life crisis—Matt especially so, as he fantasizes about how he should have been a philosopher and, although he’s not in good shape, about hiking “all the West Coast.” Sam, in the back seat on the ride out of New York City to the low mountains, sits in (mostly) quiet, bemused judgment of two not-so-admirable older men. An inter-generational critique.


Above, the key players of "Good One": left to right Danny McCarthy (Matt), James Le Gros (Chris), Lily Collias (Sam), and director India Donaldson.


And off they go. Although the Catskills are well-traveled, our trio appears mostly to be off-trail, with nary a path in sight, as if that’s what back-packing is. Their first campsite is just a space in the woods—not really a campsite—where they are joined by three young men who claim to have hiked all over the world (Patagonia, Alaska) but have somehow not learned that woodsy camping etiquette involves a certain degree of privacy and distance. The guys prove perfectly harmless, though their appearance seems intended to suggest that something might happen, perhaps to Sam. You’ll wish it had.


Put-together Sam does everything and knows everything: erecting the tents, filtering water from a stream (in retrospect, a metaphor, “filtering the unfiltered”?), cooking ramen noodles with pepper flakes, cleaning dishes with forest dirt.

 

But maybe, the India Donaldson script has hinted, Sam is at least partly responsible. Maybe she’s been flirtatious.

 

In another case of directorial misdirection, Chris and Matt tell scary stories around the campfire, but they aren’t very scary—or very interesting—and again, nothing happens.

Late in the evening, with Chris just off to bed in his nearby tent, the conversation turns, and Matt makes his remark to Sam. Yes, he’s unfiltered, depressed, and in mid-life crisis. But maybe, the India Donaldson script has hinted, Sam is at least partly responsible. Maybe she’s been flirtatious, earlier suggesting to Matt that his future may lie with a 25-year-old woman, and a child when he’s 60. Maybe we’re tapping into the 1980s, with post-feminist Camille Paglia.


Will Sam tell her father about his friend’s remark? Will he be understanding, despite his temperament? If you’ve been listening carefully (and what else is there to do?), you may have answers in an earlier campfire exchange, in which Chris and Matt lament their marital misadventures and Chris narrates the arc of forgetting. At its best (not a high bar), “Good One” is about just that: forgetting.

 

Then, with the issue unresolved, she inexplicably strips to her underwear for a dip in the stream.

 

Sam’s reaction to all this is the heart of the film; cinematically the film flows around her, and Collias is superb (even if wasted) in this role. She has an abundance of facial and other physical expressions that no doubt led to the film’s creating a buzz at Sundance Film Festival (there’s precious little else that would account for that). As orchestrated by Donaldson, Sam’s response the next day is both understandable and stupefying. She’s justifiably upset, troubled, even angered by Matt’s conduct. That is, unwilling to forget. Then, with the issue unresolved, she inexplicably strips to her underwear—filmed rather salaciously—for a dip in the stream.


It doesn’t make sense. If Sam doesn’t mind that Matt is likely looking on, enjoying the show, and if Donaldson, in this, her first full-length feature, shot in 12 days, can so easily abandon the ethical, and for the men, deeply personal, question at hand, why should we care? “Good One” is a small film about a moment—a small moment that’s neither sustained nor explored. In reflecting on the film, perhaps it’s time to consider Chris’s solution to life’s dreary unpleasantness. Let’s just forget about it and have a nice day.

 

He says: The hapless 21st-century male, who by now should know better.


She says: The film is just too small.

 

 

Date: 2024

Director: India Donaldson

Starring: Lily Collias, James Le Gros, Danny McCarthy

Runtime: 89 minutes

Country: United States

Language: English

Other Awards: 2 wins and 4 other nominations, including at Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals

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