'Good One' is an audaciously assured debut by India Donaldson

Lily Collias, James LeGros and Danny McCarthy star in the story of a camping trip gone wrong.

Image: Metrograph Pictures

Good One, India Donaldson's debut feature, is a much better and more interesting film than its description—a father/daughter coming-of-age Sundance drama set mostly on a camping trip, leading up to a jarring conclusion about gender roles and feminism—makes it sound. 

Written and directed by Donaldson, Good One is a remarkably assured, confident debut film featuring a fantastic performance by newcomer Lily Collias, with the two male leads (‘90s indie stalwart James LeGros and journeyman character actor Danny McCarthy) not far behind.

It also looks gorgeous, with cinematographer Wilson Cameron photographing the Catskills scenery very well while working with what couldn’t have been that large a budget. 

The setup is that Sam (Collias), a 17-year-old, is going on a camping trip with her father, Chris (LeGros), the father’s ne’er-do-well best friend Matt (McCarthy), and Matt’s son. However, the son is a bit too angry about his parents’ very recent divorce, so he blows the trip off. 

The trio sets off for the woods, where the initial impression we get is that Chris has things a bit more together than his buddy, who just pissed away his marriage, eats and drinks excessively, and is not especially well-equipped to spend any time in the outdoors. 

The film has plenty of comedy, mainly in the banter, which sounds an awful lot like the way a couple of old friends might talk on a camping trip. An early throwaway line about the two of them being “helpless” on a years-earlier trip, if not for one of their wives joining them, ends up a bit more important than you thought it would be. 

But as the story goes on, we gradually notice certain things: Chris has his own issues, the 17-year-old Sam seems more mature and gathered than both of these 50-something men. She’s queer, texting a female love interest when her phone signal allows it. We also learn that Chris also had a marriage collapse for reasons that are mostly his fault.

And then… something happens that recontextualizes everything. It’s not an unearned twist, but one consistent with the film’s tone up until that point. 

That’s one of the wonderful things about Good One. It leaves most things unsaid. It doesn’t feel the need to have the characters give lectures but rather makes its points very powerfully without too many words. 

Lily Collias is a revelation in the film. She was in one previous film, Palm Trees and Power Lines, which was also a Sundance selection with some similar themes, although she’s not to be confused with another Lily, Lily McInerny, who played the lead in Palm Trees, nor with Lily Collins.

Donaldson is the daughter of Roger Donaldson, the director of films from the '80s and '90s, including No Way Out, Cocktail, Dante’s Peak, and Thirteen Days. This is, needless to say, a very different type of picture than the type the elder Donaldson used to make. But it announces her as a major new voice. 

Metrograph Pictures is distributing Good One, and has been rolling it out in theaters in recent weeks. I highly recommend seeing it whenever it arrives in your city.