Good One (2024) Review: A Daughter Sees Clearly

Is Good One worth watching?

Yes, if you are willing to meet it on its own quiet terms. Good One is a precise and unsettling first feature that finds more drama in a shrug or a joke that lands wrong than most films find in a shouting match. Lily Collias gives a remarkably watchful lead performance, and India Donaldson’s control of tone is confident for a debut. The reservation is that the film’s restraint is also its limit: it deliberately withholds release, and viewers hoping for catharsis may come away feeling short-changed.

What is Good One about?

Sam (Lily Collias) is 17 and about to head off into adult life. She agrees to a three-day backpacking trip in the Catskills with her father, Chris (James Le Gros), and his old friend Matt (Danny McCarthy). Matt’s son was meant to come too but has dropped out, so Sam finds herself the only young person, and the only woman, in a party of two middle-aged men with their own grievances and history.

Nothing dramatic is supposed to happen, and for a long time nothing does. The men bicker, reminisce and lean on Sam to keep the peace, while she smooths things over and absorbs more than either of them notices. The trip becomes a test of how well her father actually sees her.

Good One is an American independent drama in English, written and directed by Donaldson. It premiered at Sundance in 2024 and runs a lean 90 minutes.

Lily Collias acts with her eyes

Much of the film is built on reaction shots, and Collias makes them riveting. Sam is competent, patient and practised at managing adult moods, and Collias plays her as someone constantly recalculating: laughing a beat too late, choosing not to answer, filing a remark away. It is a performance of restraint that never tips into blankness, and it gives the audience a clear line into Sam’s thoughts without her saying them aloud.

Le Gros is excellent as a father who is not a villain, only a man accustomed to his own comfort. Chris is affectionate and funny in bursts, and the film is careful to show why Sam loves him. McCarthy, as the more openly wounded Matt, provides the friction; his self-pity and loose talk keep the air around the campfire slightly charged.

Small moments carry the weight

Donaldson understands that disappointment rarely arrives as a single event. It builds from whose comfort comes first, whose feelings are protected, and which uncomfortable comment is quietly smoothed over. The script is full of these tiny calibrations, and the camera is patient enough to let them register.

The landscape helps. The Catskills woods are shot without postcard grandeur: close, green and a little claustrophobic, with the trail offering no escape from the company. The sound of the woods, the voices and the pauses between sentences carry the film’s tension.

Where restraint becomes a wall

The same discipline that makes Good One sharp can also make it frustrating. Donaldson refuses to underline anything, and a key turn in the story is handled so obliquely that some viewers may wonder what they were meant to take from it. Secondary characters beyond the three hikers are barely present, and the final stretch declines to give Sam, or the audience, a clear statement of what she has learned. That choice is honest to how these situations often resolve in life. It is also why the film divides audiences more than its critical reputation suggests.

Who should watch Good One?

It suits viewers who enjoy slow, observational dramas, stories about fathers and daughters, and coming-of-age films told from the inside of a teenager’s head. It is a good pick for a focused evening rather than background viewing; almost all of its meaning is in the details. There is no graphic violence, and the language is moderate, but the film deals with an uncomfortable, inappropriate remark directed at a teenager, which some viewers may find distressing.

The closest matches in our catalogue share its tension rather than its setting:

• Whiplash, a far louder film about a young person whose sense of self is shaped by an older man’s approval.
• 12 Angry Men, for another drama that generates enormous tension from a small group, one setting and conversation alone.

Browse more character-driven titles in our drama section.

The verdict

Good One is a small film with a keen eye, a debut that turns a weekend hike into a study of the gap between how parents see themselves and how their children see them. Its refusal to resolve anything neatly will frustrate some viewers, but Lily Collias’s performance and Donaldson’s precision make it well worth the patience it asks for.

Rating: 3.9/5