Good One
In India Donaldson’s painfully real feature debut, 17-year-old Sam goes on a Catskills camping trip with her father and his longtime friend. As the two men relive their glory days and past errs, Sam learns some hard truths about the helplessness of adulthood.
Writer/director India Donaldson’s striking debut feature follows 17-year-old Sam as she embarks on a backpacking trip through the Catskills with her divorcé father and his divorcé friend, whose son is supposed to join but opts out at the last minute. Alone, with these two middle-aged men reliving their glory days and past errs, Sam’s internal thoughts play out mostly on her face as she quietly leads the woefully unprepared men through the woods. In the lead performance as Sam, relative newcomer Lily Colias (Palm Trees and Power Lines) gives a breakthrough performance that thrives in its subtleties as she maintains her composure amid boundary pushing conversations between the older men. Performed in pitch perfect cringe-inducing harmony by James le Gros (Drugstore Cowboy, Certain Women) and Danny McCarthy (HBO’s “Somebody Somewhere”), the crisis-ridden men showcase that age does not necessarily equal wisdom. Any proper Pacific Northwesterner will feel right at home in the rainy, lush environment Donaldson utilizes; if I didn’t know better, I might mistake the backdrop for the Cascades.
- Director: India Donaldson
- Principal Cast: Lily Collias, James le Gros, Danny McCarthy
- Country: USA
- Year: 2024
- Running Time: 90 min.
- Producer: Diana Irvine, Graham Mason, Wilson Cameron, India Donaldson
- Screenplay: India Donaldson
- Cinematographers: Wilson Cameron
- Editors: Graham Mason
- Music: Celia Hollander
- Filmography: Debut Feature Film
- Language: English
- US Distributor: Metrograph Pictures