Screen/Society--"Good One" (India Donaldson, 2024)

GOOD ONE
(India Donaldson, 2024, 90 min, USA, English, DCP)

"A seemingly small incident has monumental implications in the extraordinary feature debut of India Donaldson, a film of expertly harnessed naturalism and restrained emotional intensity. Seventeen-year-old high school senior Sam (a revelatory Lily Collias) has agreed to join her father Chris (James Le Gros) and his longtime buddy Matt (Danny McCarthy) on a camping trip in the Catskills, though she'd rather be hanging with her friends for the weekend. Affable and wise, Sam at first seems to enjoy the intergenerational bonding experience with the two divorced dads, yet the men's own festering, middle-aged resentments begin to change the emotional tenor of the trip-until something happens that alters Sam's perception of the men and her place in their orbit. Amidst the lush beauty and contemplative forest atmosphere in upstate New York, GOOD ONE asks provocative questions about the dynamics of family, friendship, and what it means to engage in or avoid conflict." - Film at Lincoln Center

"GOOD ONE is a quiet movie, not because it has little to say but because it wants you to listen, to pay as much attention to what's left unsaid as to its meticulously crafted dialogue, and to the way silence can be a power as well as a punishment." - Slate

"Subtly dark, humorous, and wise, GOOD ONE leans into its wilderness backdrop in all of its liberating (and, sometimes, paradoxically claustrophobic) properties." - Harper's Bazaar