Good One

Writer/director India Donaldson's debut feature is a quiet, keenly observed three-hander about an annual camping trip, traditionally undertaken by two best bud dads and their teenage kids. This time out, since one kid bags out, it's just dutiful seventeen-year-old Sam (Lilly Collias), her self-centered divorced pop Chris (James Le Gros), and Chris' middle-aged trainwreck buddy, Matt (Danny McCarthy), who venture off to hike in the Catskills. When they return, the dynamics between the three will be forever changed. The trio of actors give excellent, internalized performances—Collias's understated turn should make her a star. Donaldson's skill at patiently laying the groundwork for what will eventually become an abrupt, disquieting, blink-and-you'll-miss-it reveal is impressive. Equally deft is the way everything unfolds after this brief yet game-changing moment.

Good One looks and feels as if Kelly Reichardt had teamed up with Raymond Carver instead of Jonathan Raymond. It belongs to a tradition of movies where a single moment transforms what starts out as a small, specific character study into a wordlessly communicated treatise on a larger, more universal theme. Films ranging from Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter and Ruben Östlund's Force Majeure, which playout on a large canvas, to more acute examples like Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun and Colm Bairéad's The Quiet Girl. The film that Good One recalls the most is Julia Loktev's haunting The Loneliest Planet, another quiet, deliberately paced picture about three characters hiking where nothing seems to happen for an hour or so until something so small yet so transformational occurs that your perception of who you've been watching is instantly and permanently shifted and you're suddenly aware of what the movie has been about all along.