Midlife males fall apart in Good One, writer/director India Donaldson’s debut feature, which looks at masculine fragility through the eyes of a teenage female who’s gone walking in the woods with her dad and his old friend for three days.
Sam and dad Chris are on the three-day hike in the Catskills with Matt. Matt’s son Dylan was meant to come too, but he flamed out at the last second, so Sam lost someone her own age to roll eyes with and is now toughing it out with two men not in the best place, though neither of them is going to admit it.
So it’s dad jokes and laddish references to lesbian Sam’s “lady friend” by Matt, who also wonders what Sam’s dietary shtick is since she “seems like a vegetarian”. Though since she’s pushing a beefburger into her face at the time he’s saying this, this seems like a fatuous thing to say.
Bumptious, verbal Matt has recently gone through a divorce, which is probably why Dylan is angry with him and hasn’t come. And thoughtful, quiet Chris has a new family with a younger woman. This is reconnect time for him and his daughter, and for Chris and his old pal.
As luck would have it, Sam is also on her period. Donaldson uses menstruation – frequently referenced – as a symbolic barrier between the old and the young, the male and the female. The future belongs to her, but the past is still very much in the control of the two men, who are not controlling per se, or not any more controlling than any other two middle-aged guys who think they have worked out how the world operates.
The tension is set up in the opening moments. At the point it becomes clear Dylan is not coming on this trip it becomes obvious the dynamic is going to be skewed against Sam, who does her best to be bright and cheerful, wise counsel and good company. She asserts herself in small ways, against the quiet unthinking arrogance of the older men, but also falls into the domestic role – cooking, cleaning – only partly because the men are useless at it.
Alexander Payne did something superficially similar with Sideways, which saw Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church as the chalk-and-cheese guys on a wine tour together. A variation also played out in A Walk in the Woods, an adaptation of a Bill Bryson book with Robert Redford as the capable one to Nick Nolte’s shambling reprobate.
The dynamic here is entirely different, though. The presence of watchful young female Sam changes everything, and the entire film rests of the shoulders of Lily Collias. The performances by James Le Gros, as Sam’s dad, and Danny McCarthy, as Matt, are beautifully layered – both seem capable of becoming really angry at any moment – but the men are seen through the eyes of Sam, and it’s through the fabulously in-the-moment performance of Collias that the film derives its power.
Because tension is so expertly established at the outset, Donaldson has the confidence to take the whole thing as gently as she wants. The forest is lovingly shot by DP Wilson Cameron, the sound design by Eli Cohn is quiet verging on the meditative, and for stretches not much is said. Celia Hollander’s gorgeous score also burbles – a harp at one point, a vibraphone and a washy synth at others.
I was looking up India Donaldson’s interviews to see if anyone had asked her if she liked the films of Éric Rohmer. His way of presenting a smooth surface with something bubbling away beneath is what she’s up to. The overt and the covert are not exactly fighting here but there is plenty of sparring. I found nothing. But if you like Rohmer I suspect you’ll like Good One.
Not much seems to happen in this gentle film and yet it grips hard. The time flies by. Oh, is it ending? Wow, that went quick. Quick quick, India Donaldson, let’s have another.
Good One – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
