“Everybody’s got a sack of rocks.”-Elaine Stritch
“Good One” (2024) is director and writer India Donaldson’s perfect feature debut. Seventeen-year-old Sam (Lily Collias) goes on a camping trip with her uptight dad, Chris (James Le Gros), and his ill-prepared, mournful yet affable friend Matt (Danny McCarthy). Matt’s son, Dylan (Julian Grady), was supposed to go, but Matt is in the middle of a divorce, and Dylan is not a fan of his dad. While the two men fall into their usual friendship dynamic during the outing, Sam figures out how to handle them and prioritize taking care of herself.
Donaldson’s first film is impressive because she makes none of the mistakes that first time filmmakers or even successful iconic filmmakers make—Francis Ford Coppola and Todd Phillips, I’m looking at you. She creates credible, three-dimensional characters with flaws that are not disproportionate to their stage in life then places them in situations that are earth-shattering without dialing it up to a ten. “Good One” does not tell moviegoers what is going on, but it shows us. The dialogue is organic. Nothing happens yet every action encapsulates volumes. While watching the movie, just notice Sam’s position in the group. The film is told from her point of view, and it is essential to remember that though she is mature and can handle herself like any New Yorker, she is still a child and should not have to because it is the adults’ responsibility to take care of her. Ask yourself in every scene if you feel that the adults do their job.
Chris is an intense guy. When he is first shown in “Good One,” he is packing a jar with food for the camping weekend and unnecessarily explaining his method to his second wife. Meanwhile there are glimpses of a baby or toddler that the wife is caring for while Sam stays in her room with her girlfriend, Jessie (Sumaya Bouhlbal), the door ajar overlooking the staircase landing on her level. It is implied that Sam is familiar with this routine and figures it is best to stay out of her dad’s way until it is time to depart. He comes across as unlikeable and strident as if the only correct method is his way, but his strictness only rises to the level of mansplaining, nothing worse. Sam is good at finding a space and adapting. Donaldson never shows Sam interacting with her stepmother or little brother.
While on the trip, Sam initially sits shotgun, but as soon as they pick up Matt, Chris wants her to move to the back. It is a small instruction, but it sets the tone. It is not a father daughter trip. It is a buddy trip, and by including his daughter, he is multitasking by putting in the time, but not centering her. For Chris, camping is about getting the maximum amount of joy that he wants from the trip, and when Matt or Sam serves that purpose, he will give them attention, but when they do not, he will bark orders at them and put them in their place because he believes that he is the tone setter. For instance, when Matt cannot keep up with their pace, Chris grumbles and directs pointed remarks at him. He is not a good friend or a good father. He also wants other men to see him as chill. When three young men, strangers, camp near them, and there is plenty of space, he orders Sam not to complain. He has a contradictory ethos: he wants to play alpha but never effectively exercises power over others except his daughter, who is just playing along. He is ultimately a weak, inadequate, resentful man at the mercy of others’ kindness and tolerance and relies on others’ willingness to put up with his crap to enjoy companionship.
By the second day, Sam feels bad for Matt. She chooses to fall out of her routine pace and camping style with her dad and slow down to engage with Matt on his level. It is a kindness that Matt seems to reciprocate with good humor and conversation. Unlike Chris, he includes her in conversation even though it is obvious that his priority was to vent to Chris about his marital woes, but when Sam is game and offers some incisive advice, he appreciates the attention. While movies and real-life have made it normal to expect children to be wiser than their years and offer insightful observations about adult flaws, remember that it is still inappropriate for adults to parentify children. Sam ends up caring for the men: making sure that their overnight accommodations are ideal by not even taking a pillow but sleeping on the floor, cooking the food, setting up the tent and camp, collecting water. What do these men offer?
Barely company, but at least Matt is funny and shows respect until he says something that makes Sam pause. It is an easy blink and miss it moment, and Donaldson puts the moviegoers in Sam’s shoes. We are just as uncertain if we correctly heard what Matt said. The next day, as she tries to process it and resumes walking with her dad, who is finally warming up to her company, it is a relief that she is finally forcing him to do his job, i.e. explain the world to her and protect her. Earlier he screamed at Matt for the way that he stored his food and endangered Sam by potentially attracting bears, an unintentionally hilarious and potential serendipitous reference to the ongoing TikTok debate of who would a female prefer to encounter in the woods: a man or a bear. Matt finally gets the opportunity to be the man that he presents to the world, not just pretend.
Will he step up or let her down? How will the last day of camping look? It is already an awkward dynamic made more so by a few words. The opening shot is portending the importance of this moment. It is a stream with a piles of rocks, which implies that people were there before them. While nature seems indifferent to the presence of human beings, everything has impact, and those smooth stones’ arrangement punctures the myth of nature being untouched or indifferent. Regardless of how Chris acts, this trip helps Sam stop seamlessly positioning herself in relation to others and recognize her pivotal role in the success of this weekend. She recognizes that she has more power and autonomy than the way that the adults treat her.
The resolution is proportionate to the situation. These characters are ordinary people so nothing too dramatic happens, yet it is dramatic for them. “Good One” may not be a movie for everyone because of its realism and deliberate pacing, but it is still a rigorous work because of how it captures quotidian, common situations and presents a creative, feasible solution that may still not go over well in the real world. Without being heavy-handed, Donaldson delivers an incisive commentary on how normative gender roles have the potential to harm everyone and isolate them from each other. Privilege only gets you so far before blowing up your own life then wondering why it fell apart. It is not natural to only have one-way road to empathy.
