“I was thinking of the price you pay for being obedient”: India Donaldson on her debut film Good One

With her debut feature, writer-director India Donaldson has asserted herself as a filmmaker with a talent for naturalistic dialogue and beautifully observed human behaviour. Good One stars newcomer Lily Collias as Sam, a teenager out on the trail in the Catskills, New York, with her dad (James Le Gros) and his best friend Matt (Danny McCarthy).  

On the surface, it’s a coming-of-age comedy-drama, but one that slowly reveals itself to be a poignant reflection on communication and the art of listening, exhibiting a similar humour and nuance to the work of Kelly Reichardt and Mike Leigh. In the universe of cinema camping trips, it’s one that deserves to be filed next to Nuts in May (1976) and Old Joy (2006). As Sam goes deeper into the wilderness, surrounded by men who seem blind to her experiences her frustrations, their oblivious behaviour deepens. It’s a film that skilfully navigates the crevices between generations and gender, while exposing the cracks in well-worn relationships.  

Can you tell me why the film is called Good One?  

For me, it has a double meaning. It’s a phrase that the character Matt uses to describe Sam which is intended as a compliment but there’s a painful significance to her. A lot of the discomfort that she experiences in the presence of these men has to do with her conditioned obedience. Like how much work she puts into being good, being easy to be around and amenable. Not only amenable to these men in a practical sense but emotionally. I was thinking of the price you pay for being obedient. Then I was also thinking about ‘good one’ as a stale joke.  

This is a film about listening but also the importance of silence. Is that something you were thinking about when writing the screenplay? 

Listening in particular was a guiding theme in the whole process. I had to communicate in the process of making the film how the character that says the least does not necessarily make her the most passive. My central idea was how to elevate this act of listening as an active way to participate in the world. So much of that was how we framed Sam. There’s the content of what’s being said in conversation and then there’s her interpretation of it and how it’s affecting her. The subtext is always more important than the text itself. The text of what they’re saying. Listening was an important aspect of who Sam is and how she participates in the world.  

Your comedy writing feels natural; it reminded me of Mike Leigh’s style of humour. 

He’s my favourite filmmaker. It was specifically scripted but there are a few moments of improvisation in the film. My approach is finding humorous dialogue in the natural way people observe the world. It’s a process of writing notes of snippets of conversations or observing myself. James Le Gros, I encouraged him to change words because he had such a facility with making the language feel authentic. Some of my favourite lines in the movie are things that he just said that were authentic to the moment. It’s a combination of listening to the world at a script phase and then listening to the actors to fully become responsible for who these people are. 

You waited a year before filming until Lily Collias was 18 – can you tell me what exactly it was that made Lily right for the role of Sam? 

She’s so different to Sam in real life but she shares a quality with her that I felt immediately when we met, which was she herself is an incredible listener. She’s so curious and astute about the world. In our first conversations she was so probing. I was asking her a lot of questions, and I was so curious about her, but she was equally curious about the script. That curiosity and attention to detail I felt was very… I’ve said this before, but it just continues to be more and more true in my memory of it. I felt like I was meeting the character when I met her, not because she was so much like Sam, but there was some kind of essence that opened up who Sam could be. Like how she could be this fully formed, complicated human being whose inner world could carry an entire movie. I really felt that with Lily. 

There’s a moment in the film that ushers in a dramatic change in tone. After Matt says something inappropriate to Sam, something which she confides in her father, who essentially minimises her experience. When it came to that scene, were you thinking about how on a broader scale this constantly happens to women or was this more about your personal experience?  

Both. I wrote it from a personal place. I wasn’t thinking about the politics of it or making a statement necessarily. It was more one story about one family, but I think it’s undeniable… I think every woman on this planet has experienced some version of this on the spectrum of the mild to the extreme. And not just one version of it. I think most women have had many versions of this. For me it was about a moment of disappointment. Some people experience disappointment in adults from a younger age depending on your experience. It’s inevitable when you’re transitioning into an adult life and being on your own. My memory of being a teenager is that you want to think the best of people, you want to believe what they say, you want to believe that they are interested in you for genuine reasons. That feeling of disappointment is universal or at least that’s what I believe or observe in the world.   

You end the film with a Connie Converse song. Can you tell me why you chose the disappeared singer for the credits?  

It’s an Easter egg and one I discovered in the process of choosing a song for the end. I knew Connie’s story [after packing her belongings and leaving home in 1974, aged 50, she was never heard from again]. I loved her music, but it was our music supervisor [Taylor Rowley] who put that song on a list to consider for the ending and it was just tonally the song felt right. Then I realised the symmetry with the story after the fact. Sam’s phone is her lifeline to her world. When she enters the woods, she loses her tether to a world that these men are so unaware of, she is truly isolated. The fact that Sam herself leaves and that there’s a story told around the campfire about another woman that left who was presumably fed up with these two men… I feel like in the process of making a film there’s always these magical things that happen that feel so perfect, but it was something I realised after the fact if I’m honest. I love the connection.  

I read that Connie Converse and her pal Franny had a shared notebook they wrote to each other in. It was their own private world. The online messages Sam exchanges with a character named Jessie made me think of that. What inspired their dynamic? There’s real joy and relief in their exchanges. 

It’s an aspect of the film that’s so important to me…the off-screen relationship Sam has with this girl who you only meet for a little blip. When I wrote the film or when I was starting to conceive of it, it was early pandemic, and I was living back at home with my dad and my half-sibling who were in high-school at the time. They were 16 and 18. I hadn’t been around teenagers in that volume I guess maybe ever since I was a teenager. I don’t think this was exacerbated by the pandemic and the isolation of it, it was just so interesting to me how much phone communication my siblings had with their friends. How they had these really rich social lives and emotional lives that existed in their devices. Teenagers… we talk about Gen Z always on their phones, but real relationships are starting online and deepening online. Sam, her world that these men are so completely unaware of was always important to the story. This relates to the symmetry with the Connie Converse story. I was just thinking about the private spaces teenagers express themselves in. As a teenager you don’t make everything known to your parents.  

Good One made me think of Kelly Reichardt’s films including Old Joy [2006] and Certain Women [2016], especially with the look the female cashier gives Sam. Would you say that any of her films inspired your style of filmmaking?  

I love all of her movies. I watch and rewatch her movies all of the time. I discover new things always. That moment you bring up is a perfect example. There’s so much quiet humour in her movies.  

What other filmmakers inspired your style? 

There’s so many… you brought up Mike Leigh earlier. When I first discovered his films, I watched everything I could and then I read everything I could about how he works. He has such a unique process, but I think the thing that’s so interesting to me is how deep his collaboration is with his actors and how his films celebrate the art of performance. There’s so much that comes together to make a film. So many people touch the film to make it uniquely what it is but the performance and what an actor brings is always at the top for me. There’s certain filmmakers where it’s so clear they love actors. That was my way into this film and in how I watch movies too.  

► Good One is in UK cinemas 16 May.