Good One

A quiet movie that whispers in a roar, about a teen girl going on a hiking trip with her dad and his best friend, revealing the subtle fractures in their lives and relationships.

“Good One” is a lovely and disturbing film.

From an aesthetic standpoint, it’s a gorgeous film, about a teen girl backpacking in the Catskill Mountains with her dad and his best friend. The cinematography by Wilson Cameron is lush and pleasing, and the standout musical score by Celia Hollander mixes folk song-type melodies with percussive patters.

Writer/director India Donaldson, making her first feature after an apprenticeship in short films, shows a confident hand in handling her small cast as they traipse about the woods and have understated encounters. It’s a movie with ample stretches with no dialogue, and unlike most young filmmakers, Donaldson resists the urge to fill that silence with something.

The less beautiful theme of the movie is disconnection. Sam (Lily Collias) is 17 and about to go off to college. Her dad, Chris (James Le Gros), divorced her mom long ago and has now remarried and had a baby. Her relationship with her father is loving, but distant, as often happens around her age.

Sam splits her time living with each parent, has a close friendship with Jessie (Sumaya Bouhbal), and is in that stage of life where old connections are fading in preparation for taking wing into adulthood.

Chris is an ardent hiker, and over the years has taken many of these with Sam. He used to do so with his best friend, Matt (Danny McCarthy), but they’ve gotten older, Matt has gotten out of shape and has his own more recent divorce to deal with. His son was supposed to come with them on the trip, but backs out at the last minute in a fit of anger.

Matt is a real piece of work. An actor who used to star on a big crime procedural show in the early 2000s, he’s scraping by with bit parts and TV commercials, and the divorce is a financial strain. He’s the sort of guy who plays everything off as a big joke or no big deal, but he’s clearly scared to death about his future.

In terms of story, there isn’t much of one. This threesome hikes during the day, and then during breaks or the evening they talk about their lives. More accurately, the two men commiserate about their marriages and fatherhood, while Sam offers comforting advice peppered with snarky quips, while withholding details about herself.

They praise her precocious wisdom and maturity, with Matt dubbing her “a good one.”

Chris and Matt have that sad middle-aged way of seeing themselves as the victims of their own story rather than the protagonist. Chris laments his failed marriage with Sam’s mom, complaining “I just couldn’t make her happy.” Sam chides him for not taking ownership of his actions.

Matt is more willing to admit his own failings, but hides it behind the exercise of telling scary campfire stories. There’s a lot of pain behind his jokester facade.

Sam is on her period during the trip, and Donaldson makes a special point of emphasizing the mechanics and challenges of using tampons in the wild. This seems to be to emphasize her as the lone female in this wilderness. Similarly they run into some young men hiking who join their campsite, and their bantering contrasted with Sam’s silence emphasizes the unspoken threat she feels.

Something happens fairly late in the movie, about which I’ll share no details, other than to say it represents a further wedge in her relationship with her dad. She quietly reaches out to let him know what happened and how much it bothered her, and he fails to provide her the space to truly hear her and do the fatherly thing.

I don’t consider the movie misandristic, but rather subtly showing how differently men and women operate within their own heads, and the difficulties that can arise when there’s an imbalance of power. Sam, though the youngster in the group with the least amount of agency, is in some ways the most capable.

“Good One” is a quiet movie that whispers in a roar.