Film Review: Good One
by Rose Finlay

India Donaldson, USA 2024

Seventeen-year-old Sam and her father, Chris, are joined by family friend Matt on a camping trip in the Catskill Mountains. Matt’s teenage son has refused to join due to familial tensions following Matt’s divorce. What was supposed to be a time of bonding between daughter and father instead turns into an opportunity for the two men to opine about their relationship troubles. While they are bickering about infidelity and the bleakness of their middle-aged lives, Sam watches and contributes with insightful comments which bely her age. It seems everyone has forgotten that she is still a child and tension rises as the audience waits for the shoe to drop.

GOOD ONE is an insightful film about masculine immaturity and the impact it has on young women. While Sam should feel safe with her father and a close family friend, incrementally she is shown that these two men are so self-involved that they forget her personhood as a child, an impressionable girl, and simply as a human who deserves to be respected. This is a beautifully composed film which takes a simplistic plot and masterfully infuses it with tension and meaning. Lily Collias, in particular, shines as Sam in a role which demonstrates her strength as an actor. Perhaps the most striking aspect of GOOD ONE is just how familiar the situation will feel to most women. It shines a light on a pervasive, but little examined uncomfortable reality of girlhood—how male fragility often leads to the loss of innocence.