Writer/director India Donaldson makes a quiet but impactful feature-length directorial debut with Good One. This 2024 Sundance and Cannes darling dares to take a sympathetic gaze towards a type of person cinema usually villainizes....teenage girls. This demographic is usually rendered on-screen with mockery not humanity. In Good One, though, Sam (Lily Collias) is the story's anchor. Her perspective, constant use of a cell phone, and dubious attitude toward adult men around her are treated with empathy. Her point-of-view is explored in a story concerning Sam going on a multi-day hike with her father Chris (James Le Gros) and his long-time best friend Matt (Danny McCarthy).
These two are always sniping at each other while Chris never seems to be satisfied with his daughter. The tension between the trio is realized in a nicely subdued fashion, with Donaldson often eschewing a score or grandiose editing flourishes in the most uncomfortable moments between these people. Awkward gritty reality is enough to instill unease in one's stomach. There is, however, a beautiful score from composer Celia Hollander underpinning exterior shots in Good One making use of very classical instruments like a harp or flute. These tracks sound like they could've easily been ripped from a 1960s movie, they're so soothing and gentle.
These melodies represent a larger soothing world that Chris and Matt keep intruding on with their nonsense. Within just 89 minutes, Donaldson got me totally invested in Sam's plight, a feat that also comes down to the terrific work from Lily Collias. With her aloof line deliveries and suppressed exterior, Sam is a realistic portrait of many teenage girls. She's also (conceptually) a tough character for an actor to get a hold on. Going too big with Sam would undercut this figure tremendously. Collias maintains a subdued composure that's just as authentic as it is engaging. There's still such pain or irritation peeking out from the corners of her physicality. With this absorbing performance, it's no wonder Good One gets such remarkable cinema out of the kind of person most movies ignore outright.
On election night, I knew there couldn't possibly be good news on the horizon. Thus, I took a break from the doom-scrolling or internet and opted to instead watch a movie. Instead of diving into one of the countless motion pictures on my watchlist, I instead revisited an old favorite from one of the great modern filmmakers: Wes Anderson. 2014's The Grand Budapest Hotel filled my eyeballs that night and it turned out to be an amazing choice. Returning to this feature after ten years, I was struck by just how precise Anderson's visual gifts were on this particular enterprise. Specifically, the use of natural lighting and framing in sequences shot in a tighter aspect ratio is utterly extraordinary. My mouth was agog at these visual details like I was watching it all for the first time!
It's also incredible how deeply funny this feature is despite how often death and chaos manifest in its twisty-turny plotline. The montage of various hotel owners saying "cover me" after they're informed M. Gustave is in trouble?? Side-splitting. Anderson's works always so delicately balance pathos and laughs. No matter how many times this guy pulls off that feat, it always dazzles me. In the case of Grand Budapest Hotel, I was specifically impressed how the looniest gags (like Willem Dafoe's evil henchman getting disposed of so suddenly) don't undercut the title's most quietly bittersweet moments. A final line from an elderly Zero about how he keeps the hotel "for Agatha, we were happy here...for a little while" just cuts to the soul.
Life is fleeting. No relationship last forever. No person lives forever. No building stands eternal. Even the most passionate romance will eventually end while the most lavish hotel will someday crumble into disrepair. How do human beings keep going in the face of these harrowing ienvabilities? Tbe Grand Budapest Hotel's narrative structure (a story told within a story told within the reading of a novel) shows that stories are one way we keep people alive. So too are seemingly disposable things like a painting. We all will perish. But there are also ways we can linger on and make the world a bit better than we found it. "You see, there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity," M. Gustave imparts to Zero at one point. That's a line I needed to hear during the last week of political apoclaypse in America. Only Anderson could nestle something so profound in such a visual extravaganza.
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