A teenage girl is forced to confront the dangers embedded in a camping trip with her father and his friend in this uncomfortable and well-crafted directorial debut.
★★★★☆
The title of India Donaldson’s Good One has a few potential meanings. The first-time feature director (who also wrote and co-produced the film) could be using this title as a hypothetical response to the many ‘jokes’ protagonist Sam (Lily Collias) must suffer through from her dad Chris (James Le Gros) and his friend Matt (Danny McCarthy), comments that are often needling and rarely funny. These two men usually talk just to hear their own voices, as if to confirm that they’re alive, or that they matter. It leaves little room for Sam to show much personality throughout the trio’s weekend-long camping trip in the woods. Chris and Matt contend with the ambience, beauty and lack of creature comforts in nature with idle chit chat and pained reminiscing, while Sam finds herself continually pushed into the role of a nurturing caregiver. The film’s plot traces the ups and downs of this camping trip, most of which are everyday yet unsettling, as uncomfortable truths and realisations gradually come to the fore.
But, absorbing as this development is, especially given Donaldson’s keen eye for uncovering both natural beauty and these men’s ugly qualities, an even more important shift points to the double meaning of Good One. Its title also marks the divide between how Sam views these men and how they envision her. It’s a painful realisation that doesn’t just convey Sam’s newfound recognition that her dad is a fallible human being rather than a pure-hearted protector, but also that even he refuses to shield her from the unwanted attention she’ll receive from men now that she’s (mostly) grown-up. Sam is the “good one” of the trip, the kind and pure soul, wise beyond her years as she counsels these much older men about how to navigate their interpersonal relationships. The same cannot be said of the two men accompanying her, which this protagonist is forced to reckon with across this 90-minute feature.
These coddled manchildren, who show little interest in Sam’s perspective when it doesn’t relate to themselves, make it clear to this young adult that carelessness and predatory behaviour are unfortunate hallmarks of her relationship with them. While it takes an age for this to be fully realised, in a scene that’s quietly electric as a culmination of what Sam has been experiencing throughout this trip, Good One rewards viewers’ patience. Its minor instances of conflict could never truly work without a more sinister element to ground the film, but even the mildly unpleasant interactions between Sam, Chris and Matt become so much more meaningful once Donaldson introduces an unsettling note of tension in this uncomfortable tale.
At first, the men are simply oblivious, making them seem mildly annoying yet harmless. But once it is clear that they can take advantage of that veneer of obliviousness, all to save face or pretend to forget about uncomfortable moments, it becomes abundantly clear why this story had to follow this structure. This wilderness excursion will feel aimless at times for some viewers, but like the moments where cinematographer Wilson Cameron is able to uncover nature’s concealed beauty, Donaldson and these three performers are simultaneously embarking on another type of exploration, mining these characters’ psyches to widen the cracks in their relationships.
Much of Good One is lowkey, filled with opportunities for Chris and Matt to showcase their better qualities. Though it’s telling that they rarely capitalise on these moments by doing exactly that, they’re mostly a sympathetic duo, especially Matt, who is broken-up about the dissolution of his marriage and his teenage son’s resentment towards him. All three of these performers are astounding, but McCarthy is especially brilliant at using every second of screentime to convey his character’s brokenness. Matt is a lumbering fool, totally unequipped to handle a weekend trip in the wilderness, but it’s impossible not to pity him in his folly.
McCarthy’s performance is a never-ending exercise in scarcely concealed pain. His movements, grunts and constant chatter soon betray themselves as poor attempts to mask the weight of his pain. Chris is blunt and tight-lipped to a maddening degree, eager to point the blame but unwilling to take accountability or offer words of solace. It takes very little time to witness the ways in which Sam’s father is a terrible friend, while it is a crushing blow — and this movie’s finest achievement — to reckon with his inadequacies as a father.
Sam, meanwhile, is always watchful and vigilant, forced to look out for herself once it dawns on her that these men, who once took on a protector role in her life, can no longer be trusted to rely on. Collias bears the weight of that realisation expertly, even if the film flounders after this heart-stopping moment. A five-minute-long nature sequence, documenting different aspects of this woodland area as the trio trek through it, divides the two most crushing scenes in Good One. More lengthy and weightless scenes follow, demonstrating a movie full of energy that doesn’t quite know what to do with it. With nowhere else to go from here, it starts to peter out, an unfortunate case of a somewhat unsatisfying story structure that doesn’t feel like it could exist any other way.
But what binds this experience together is how in tune all three performers are with one another, as well as Donaldson’s keen talent in laying the film’s uncomfortable conversations bare. The film cinematography doesn’t just look good for a feature debut, it is bursting with life in its depiction of the woodland areas that this trio explores. Celia Hollander’s soundtrack for Good One is also a delight, with joyous and jubilant tones that reflect the simple beauty of the natural world, underscoring Sam’s plight as she must contend with the danger and callousness underpinning her relationships with these men.
The Verdict
Despite an uneven story structure, Donaldson has constructed an excellent feature debut that takes full advantage of the bottomless talent of its trio of leading performers. The interactions in Good One are so authentic and raw that it never once feels didactic, all while developing its themes masterfully across its short runtime.
Words by Cian McGrath
Good One is in UK cinemas from 16 May.
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