Sam (Lily Collias) joins her father, Chris (James Le Gros), and his best friend, Matt (Danny McCarthy), on a three-day hike through the Catskills in rural New York.  Dylan (Julian Grady), Matt’s son, decides at the last minute that he will stay home, so it is just the three of them up on the mountains.  As the hike continues and the men reminisce about their youth and reconcile their present, Sam begins to see these paternal figures in her life in a whole new light. 

India Donaldson makes her feature debut with Good One, premiering to acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival before its Metrograph Pictures-backed theatrical run.  A brief 90 minutes, the film is an unassumingly powerful coming-of-age drama that uses every frame to breathe life into the page and onto the screen.  This of course is filtered through Collias’ performance, but both Le Gros and McCarthy bring such specific energy to the film that it complicates the simple idea in the exact same way that nothing in real life is ever this simple and concise.   

In only her second major role, Donaldson places the weight of the film on her young star’s shoulders, no easy task for any actor, but especially not in a film as tempered as this one.  The script is in no rush to divulge its plans for the characters much beyond that they will take a hike through the woods.  One of the most exciting things about it is how Donaldson treats it almost like a horror film and a mystery, laying out clues and sketching a framework that points to something larger and which oftentimes leads nowhere. Impressively, the story never feels like it has been put on pause during these tangents which is what is so frustrating about the typical use of red herrings.  One of the greatest examples of this is in the early second act when the small family meets another group of thru-hikers; three loud, brash young men that greatly disrupt the peace and serenity of our crew.  Ultimately, their presence is just a fun story of something that happened on the trail and when they say their goodnight over the dwindling fire, it might as well have been their goodbyes.  Donaldson though never loses her focus on where the story is heading so she is secretly building towards her finale while allowing this tangent to ebb and flow, creating its own arcs so that we become invested in these ultimately inconsequential characters. 

This makes the performances all the more incredible as the actors are never playing their hand too soon, giving away the ultimate turns before Donaldson is ready to pull back the curtain.  We know there is something that will be revealed in the middle of this great forest, but for the most part, Donaldson keeps us calm as the characters banter back and forth with each other until after a night of drinking and pouring out their hopes, fears, and regrets, Matt crosses the line which we have narratively been traveling towards this whole time.  Divorced and seen by his son as pathetic, he says it almost like a bad joke asking Sam to join him in the tent to stay warm.  Just the night prior, they ribbed each other about how Matt forgot his sleeping bag, but that same good-humored tone is absent on this second night, nowhere to be found. The look on Sam’s face is immediately overcome with dread, betrayal, and disgust, all before Matt doubles down and rephrases his request.  In our seats, our hearts sink because we, like Sam, have grown to trust Matt.  Donaldson is not done, though, as for the last leg of the hike gone are the jovial sprites walking behind Chris talking about who they may have been in their past lives and their favorite meals.  The trail is sparkly quiet, and at the bank of the river, Sam tells her father in confidence what happened the night before only to have it brushed off as if it were nothing.  It is absolutely devastating, and this moment, one of the most resonating in the film, is not overdone yet impossible to forget.  Attention is not drawn towards it in any flashy way.  But it takes this story about growth and turns it into an absolute tragedy; one that is all too real, statistics show, for more people – even those in our own lives – than we will ever know.  

Stories about the systems of abuse have been on the rise in the wake of the #MeToo movement, but few have done it in such a grounded, understated, and unstylized way as Good One.  Without highlighting the violence – but never downplaying the betrayal – the film is not hiding behind flashy colors or bold style choices to lure us in before tearing down the façade.  Showing that this truly does happen in real life and not just in the movies, the message lands like a devastating gut punch.  Sam gets her revenge by packing the men’s bags with river rocks while they nap in the sun before she makes her way down to the cars. It is a small thing played almost as a joke but it does not downplay the severity of what transpired, and it is nice to see that Donaldson remains resilient and does not let the film lose its sense of self.  

Good One is an unassuming story that slowly reveals its truths across its brief runtime in a devastatingly poignant way.  While Matt’s advances occupy the final act, before his transgression, Donaldson presents a fascinating rumination on life.  It slams to a halt, yet this structural choice again informs the experience of watching the film as it follows real life given that many survivors of assault have cited that, at least for some time after the event, life feels as if it has stopped. Donaldson lulls the audience into the story which she handles with a delicate ease presenting a hangout movie that never feels formless, and a drama that never feels overdone.  Impressively nuanced even in its simplicity, she presents a fully realized world that is the unfortunate truth for many and really drives her message home in how stark and unflinching she is on the page.  The film is shockingly powerful once all is revealed and bolstered by strong, layered performances from the leading trio, Good One is a strong first step on the trail of what will surely be an incredible career for Donaldson.