It’s often the quiet places where the most revelatory things can be learned. Discussion is critical in figuring things out. It’s listening where you can allow other people to show themselves in an authentic way they may not have around a crowd. India Donaldson’s immensely smart “Good One”s setting is a three-day hiking trip considering the power of letting things breathe. Within the plot are shots of the expansive beauty of the woods, and Celia Hollander’s score dances around ever so slightly. It’s these moments and sometimes what is not being said where the most profound realizations are allotted the time to expand.
17-year-old Sam (Lily Collias) is a high school senior preparing for college. As a send-off, she is about to go camping with her father, Chris (James LeGros), his best friend Matt (Danny McCarthy), and Matt’s son Dylan. However, there is one issue before they set off on their adventure: Dylan chooses not to come at the last minute. That elicits a bit of awkwardness – Sam doesn’t have a peer her age to confide in. The men on this trip are in different states of disrepair in their lives.
Good One/ Photo Credit: Metrograph Pictures
Chris is going through a divorce and is in a mid-life, trying to figure out where to go next phase. Dylan is as well, although the sadness feels deeper inside him. He’s a failed actor who is reduced to booking commercials with a son who doesn’t care for him because of how his marriage ended. You have two adults aimless in the world (primarily because of their transgressions), and Sam, who is about to embark on the next phase of her life and didn’t surely come on the trip in the present mind of helping older men find peace.
Sam and Chris have done hikes like this before and have their packing sequences down to a science. Dylan, let’s say he’s a beginner at best. It’s that differentiation where Donaldson shows the fissures between the so-called long-term friendship between Chris and Dylan. Is it merely because Chris couldn’t find anybody else to bring? It certainly seems so with the constant nitpicking and backhanded insults he hurls at Dylan – from the food he chooses at a gas station rest stop, the clothes Dylan wears, and even the lofty goals he might have. In the middle of all this is Sam, an innocent bystander to people who are aloof to her presence or needs. There is so much Collias can convey just with facial expression and silence.
“Good One” is already conscious of the twinge inside your stomach, seeing this scenario set at the beginning of the film. From there, it slowly unveils what it’s trying to say through specific discussions and how Sam reacts to them. There’s an uncomfortable and flippant conversation between Chris and Dylan about infidelity that Sam has to sit back and hear. Her dad is not necessarily the most attentive person — his critical nature sometimes escapes Dylan and zeros in on Sam. Dylan tries to interject with humor, but there’s a desperate undercurrent – which takes a rather unsettling turn towards the film’s end.
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Three days feels like an eternity coming from her perspective. Sam’s only moment of tranquility is texting her girlfriend back home with the small amount of service she gets in the woods. In no absolute way should a teenage girl be the voice of reason among two men with hidden contempt for one another and would probably benefit from a professional to talk to. Instead, Sam is the go-between, and the audience has to witness the downsides of being attentive to the shortcomings of adults and having these figures let you down. I wouldn’t necessarily call it the quintessential catapult to the beginning stages of adulthood—it’s far from it. It’s Donaldson’s sure and steady hand of storytelling that doesn’t need to explain everything to the audience. But there’s enough subtext to know these three people will never be the same coming back from this trip.
