Good One (in person & online)

Lily Colias, James Le Gros, Danny McCarthy

The debut feature from American indie filmmaker India Donaldson has echoes of Kelly Reichardt, Nicole Holofcener and Céline Sciamma but also demonstrates its director as someone with an authentic voice of their own. 17-year-old Sam (Lily Collias) is joining her dad (James Le Gros) on a camping trip before college, along with his long-time buddy Matt (Danny McCarthy). Matt’s son is also meant to join but, wincing from his parents’ recent divorce, in the end refuses to go, straining relations from the off. Donaldson shows a remarkable facility for cutting deep into long-standing dynamics in just a few terse words, and when an awkward campfire encounter between Sam and Matt ruptures the trip, it casts the trio’s relationships in a new, ugly light.

Similar to The Assistant, this is a clear-eyed film about the everyday quality of sexual impropriety that doesn’t offer easy vindication or moral victory, just a beautifully honest depiction of the mess we’re in. While the bare bones of the story don’t stray far from a standard coming of age tale, what marks Good One as one of the best debuts for many years is the sheer specificity of detail and quality of delivery from its tiny cast. Character actor royalty James Le Gros – a returning player from directors like Reichardt, Todd Haynes and David Fincher – performs brilliantly alongside Danny McCarthy, bringing subtle layers of character to the two friends and the reasons their friendship is beginning to cleave apart. But it is Lily Colias’ intelligent, cliché-resistant take on Sam that marks her out as one to watch. Tender, sure-footed and making a real feature of its depiction of the beauty of the New York Catskills, Good One is a film that speaks quietly but with great force.