Good One (2024)

December 24, 2024 1:34 AM

In India Donaldson’s minimalist debut feature Good One, a middle-aged father, his perceptive 17-yo daughter, and another mess of a divorced buddy of his are going on a camping trip in the Catskills. That’s it, that's the whole simple plot. But it’s told with the maturity and eye-for-details of somebody who had intimately known and observed all three.

Not much is said, everything is subtle, quiet, and understated. The girl, Sam, got it all together, and the actress who plays her with such raw intelligence is a revelation.

Of the 1,200+ movies that I watched in 2024, this is one of my 'Top 10'. My rating - 10/10.

The trailer

98% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Only 6.6 on IMDb

Only 3.7 on Letterboxd

Wikipedia

Her previous 3 shorts (which is how I discovered her earlier in the year) are publicly available on YouTube and her Vimeo account:

Medusa

Hannahs

If Found

posted by growabrain (3 comments total)

FWIW, Letterboxd only goes up to 5 and the reviews are heavily clustered toward the middle.

Below about 2.6 means something is probably generally thought to be crap and above a 3.4 means it's pretty well-liked.

So 3.7 is pretty high, an excellent average indeed. That's the same average rating as Juno, Beetlejuice, and American Grafitti.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:59 AM on December 24

DTO, I know, but many of the great films cluster at 4+. I think that this one will rise in ratings, as more people start watching it. Check it again in 6 months.
posted by growabrain at 9:14 AM on December 24

(Note: I know I'm in the minority, maybe, but I don't give a star rating to things on Letterboxd because there's too much nuance for me.)

I loved this and I think it's great and it's definitely a movie I want more people to watch. It feels natural in a way that is uncomfortable, but the "uncomfortable" factor is and isn't the point of the movie. This situation isn't fun for any of them, but for Sam, especially. She's a queer young woman who is very much alone in these circumstances, even if her father is (mostly) on her side.

I do feel like it's greatness was slightly oversold to me -- I went into it with expectations it probably could never deliver on. That's not this movie's fault, mind you. I still liked it a lot, of course! It's just such a subtle movie in what it's doing. I think I need to watch it again to let it settle in a bit more.

I think Big Boys is an interesting companion piece to this movie. I mean, yes, they're both about awkward family camping trips but also about queer kids figuring out what the world now means and how they get to live in it.
posted by edencosmic at 10:04 PM on December 24