Good One trailer teases a tense camping trip in India Donaldson’s directorial debut

India Donaldson takes the coming-of-age parent-child road trip for a spin in her directorial debut, Good One, which premiered earlier at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. In theaters August 9, Good One centers on a teen named Sam (Lily Collias) who goes camping with her dad (James Le Gros) and his longtime best friend (Danny McCarthy). In a new trailer, the typical teen disdain for parental antics twists into tension as Sam becomes increasingly disappointed in her dad’s behavior.

The film follows 17-year-old Sam (Collias), who “embarks on a three-day backpacking trip in the Catskills with her dad, Chris (Le Gros) and his oldest friend, Matt (McCarthy),” reads the synopsis. “As the two men quickly settle into a gently quarrelsome brotherly dynamic, airing long-held grievances, Sam, wise beyond her years, attempts to mediate. But when lines are crossed and Sam’s trust is betrayed, tensions reach a fever pitch, as Sam struggles with her dad’s emotional limitations and experiences the universal moment when the parental bond is tested.”

Speaking with the Sundance Institute, Donaldson said her first full-length feature was inspired by “Trips with my dad. There’s something about being isolated on a camping trip or trapped on a road trip that lays relationship dynamics bare.” The script was written during the pandemic, which further inspired the filmmaker to explore “how an isolated environment can draw out family dynamics in a heightened and often very funny way,” she explained in an interview for the Chicago Critics Film Festival. “So I set out to write something that was intimate and contained but would feel visually and emotionally expansive. I find that camping trips can feel claustrophobic in a counterintuitive way. You’re outdoors, but with the same people for days on end with no real privacy or easy escape.”

That setting is “fertile ground for itchy humor and quiet observation, both of which are left to Donaldson’s well-balanced script and Collias’s calculating performance,” writes The A.V. Club’s Jacob Oller in his Chicago Critics Film Festival recommendation. “Lush greenery fills the screen as it becomes humid with unspoken conflict, every shot lingering with an unhurried elegance befitting its small yet potent story. Good One’s impressively tuned dramedy finds uncomfortable honesty out in the woods.”