Good One – first-look review

Hav­ing pre­miered at Sun­dance and played New Directors/​New Films at the top of the year, India Donaldson’s Good One is the only title at this year’s edi­tion of Cannes, across all com­pe­ti­tions and side­bars, to have played at anoth­er fes­ti­val. Her ultra-nat­u­ral­is­tic fea­ture debut finds 17-year-old Sam (Lily Col­lias) col­lat­ing her essen­tial gear for a three-day camp­ing trip with her father Chris (James Le Gros), his recent­ly divorced best friend Matt (Dan­ny McCarthy), and his teenage son Dylan, who backs out of the trip just as they intend to depart. The gen­er­a­tional divide is dis­cern­able from the get-go, but seems rel­a­tive­ly play­ful ini­tial­ly, high­light­ed through jokes about Sam look­ing like she would be a veg­e­tar­i­an and light chastis­ing of her opin­ions. After an oblig­a­tory gas sta­tion pit stop, the trio park the car and set off.

Accom­pa­nied by a whim­si­cal cacoph­o­ny of ring­ing of wind chimes, the pang of xylo­phone keys, and the ambi­ent rustling of trees, the trio ven­tures deep into the heart of the Catskills wilder­ness. Past streams flow­ing serene­ly down rocky paths and through rock­pools crowd­ed with squirm­ing tad­poles, Matt and Chris keep them­selves amused by dis­cussing what they would choose to do should they have anoth­er chance at life, span­ning from own­ing a book­shop to becom­ing a philoso­pher, before turn­ing to Sam for her input. For­get­ting how much life she is still yet to live, she pro­claims that she ​“still gets to choose this one”. This is the first sign that she is wise beyond her years, and is labelled a ​“good one” by Matt in com­par­i­son to oth­er kids her age, includ­ing his son, who is strug­gling to grap­ple with his parent’s divorce.

What presents itself as a com­pli­ment quick­ly spi­rals into Matt view­ing Sam in a new light and it is here that the nar­ra­tive reach­es its boil­ing point, as Don­ald­son cap­tures the gut-wrench­ing moment in each young woman’s life where you feel betrayed by those who are meant to pro­tect you. The ener­gies of all par­ties shift, but instead of these ten­sions explod­ing into con­fronta­tion, they qui­et­ly bub­ble over, dev­as­tat­ing­ly cap­tur­ing how women are encour­aged not to take these inci­dents too seri­ous­ly, or to react ​“sen­si­tive­ly” when sug­ges­tive com­ments are direct­ed towards us. Worse still – to believe that we may have played a role in their occur­rence. Every woman will recog­nise the way Sam retreats into her­self, final­ly mus­ter­ing up the courage to say some­thing to her father, only to be met with excus­es that will for­ev­er taint their relationship.

Lily Col­lias is sen­sa­tion­al in her first lead­ing role, expert­ly paint­ing a por­trait of a young woman in which many will see them­selves reflect­ed. The nuance upheld in her phys­i­cal­i­ty allows the audi­ence to glimpse Sam’s sub­con­scious and train of thought with­out utter­ing a sin­gle word. Don­ald­son crafts the most pro­found debut of the year so far all with­in a neat­ly pol­ished run­time, some­thing that has been hard to come by as of late. Its sooth­ing start con­trasts its tense end­ing, leav­ing all cards on the table to ques­tion the seem­ing­ly mun­dane with the enlight­en­ment of retrospect.