The title is accurate
In my review of The Royal Hotel, I posited that the phrase “well-observed” is a backhanded compliment that indicates a film is good but somewhat pointless. Usually it applies to some upper-shelf Sundance-type small-stakes character portrait made with precision and restraint, but not enough narrative stakes or momentum to recommend beyond the kind of people who are already looking for these kinds of films. (I very much am in that camp.)
And goddamn if Good One isn’t the most “well-observed” film of the year. The film is the debut of India Donaldson, son of New Zealand director Roger Donaldson whom you might know as the filmmaker of Tom Cruise vehicle Cocktail or the 1997 volcano movie not called Volcano. Donaldson (hence India) shows a steady, confident hand with a film that works best as a vessel of subtlety — the small gestures and the way things are said capturing as much as the actions and words themselves.
We follow Sam (Lily Collias), a seventeen-year-old who is preparing for a three-day backpacking trip with her dad, Chris (James Le Gros) and some family friends. In a more emotionally simple film, Sam would resent the trip; but here, she is an active participant in the planning and packing, and she seems to be looking forward to some time of escape with her dad. Chris is divorced and remarried, caring but a little tempestuous, especially because of some apparent stress at work.
Joining Sam and Chris are supposed to be Matt (Danny McCarthy), Chris’s oldest friend who has recently gone through his own divorce, and Chris’s son Dylan (Julian Grady), who is about Sam’s age. But we witness a blow-up fight between Matt and Dylan, with Dylan storming back inside and refusing to join, so only Matt comes along. Thus, Sam is stuck by herself with two middle-aged men who are best friends for the weekend. The bulk of the film is a three-hander between this trio.
The large majority of Good One takes place in the woods in upstate New York, richly shot on location by Donaldson and first-time cinematographer Wilson Cameron. The dark greens of the canopy and hazy blue-browns of the creeks portend emotional turmoil but not dread. The hearts of all three characters are wild and just a little dangerous, just like the overgrowth they hike through. You could call God one of the best production designers of the year.
It would have been easy for Good One to end up as a film where nothing really happens, a little bit like Janet Planet (another “well-observed” film from 2024). But Good One does involve a proper incident. It is probably the smallest unit of conflict that could be called “melodrama” — no real lasting consequences excepts feelings of betrayal and sour spirits. But it does provide a center of gravity to the film that prevents it from drifting off into nothingness with that chilly breeze the characters keep complaining about.
And yet, something feels a little bit off in the dynamics of the film’s final half hour. The ways the characters act doesn’t really align with what we’d seen leading up to it. That’s the risk of having such precise character portraits — when a few hairs are in the wrong place, it throws off the immersion. Matt shifts too far out of focus; Chris becomes more aloof as a dad than he was; and Sam suddenly loses her ability to articulate feelings and keep the grown men in check. To be fair, part of this is the point — it’s a fine line between a comfortable peace and a suspenseful quiet, but the final act still doesn’t sit right for me.
I’m tempted to label Good One a “coming of age” film — it certainly has the setup and premise for such. And there’s something to that; perhaps 20 years down the line, Sam would define this camping trip as the first time she really felt like she was an adult and no longer a child. But it’s really more about Matt and Chris than it is Sam: I wonder if India’s father Roger felt a twinge when he saw this to know how cynically she sees men of his generation, and fathers in particular. They’re not evil, but they’re big-bodied boys lacking emotional perception, stuck in arrested development, and with unmoored centers.
The acting is uniformly terrific and very in sync with the writing. I chalk this up to Donaldson’s intuition coaching the actors as much as the cast themselves; it simply all feels as part of a whole. Collias in particular offers an antidote to the bland and unlikeable Elliott from fellow 2024 Sundance film My Old Ass; she shows how an ordinary teen girl can be quite sympathetic rather than dull.
Good One is an extremely promising debut with enough savviness and clarity in both the writing and direction to suggest Donaldson’s future films will be worth seeking out. It’s the kind of film that gets rediscovered once a director makes a proper great drama. Good One doesn’t get so far as “great” but offers quite a bit low-key charm.
Is It Good?
Good (5/8)
Dan is the founder and head critic of The Goods. Follow Dan on Letterboxd. Join the Discord for updates and discussion.