Nature is everywhere in Good One. The scene is the Catskills, New York State, with the landscape of woods and streams so lush you almost hear the hushed voiceover of a wildlife documentary, quietly describing the strange species now wending their way towards the camera: New Yorkers on a camping break.
The party numbers three. Two — Chris and Matt — are men the rough side of 50. (They are played by James Le Gros and Danny McCarthy.) The third is Chris’s 17-year-old daughter Sam (Lily Collias), keeping her wits about her in a film that asks that you do the same. The movie is a near-flawless miniature, and one of the most welcome surprises of the year in film so far.
That order of introduction is no accident. If either Chris or Matt knew they were characters in a film, they would surely each think they were the hero. Chris is moderately successful, and prepared to the point of uptight for the American outdoors. Best pal Matt — whose own son bails on the trip before leaving the city — is a resting actor. Early on, the pair ham up their roles as taskmaster and genial buffoon, while uniting to tease Sam with lazy tropes about Gen Z. They express faux-shock that she is not, and never has been, vegetarian. “She seems like a vegetarian,” Matt says.
But as first-time director India Donaldson subtly makes clear, tropes are seldom the whole story. And Sam is both the smartest cookie here and far from the “sassy” cliché a duller movie would make her. Outnumbered by the olds, we come to see them through her eyes. The result is not flattering. It can also be droll. But the familiar path to all-is-forgiven group hugs is the stuff of that less interesting film. This one has teeth.
All kudos to Donaldson. It takes nerve to work with small glances and awkward pauses, and talent to use them so well that by halfway through the movie, you can pretty much hear the characters think. But the casting might be an even bigger coup. The movie needs the perfect Sam — and Collias is a serious find.
★★★★★
In UK cinemas from May 16
