The first feature by writer/director India Donaldson makes a virtue of simplicity. She suggests that events that shift the direction of our lives can be so slight as to go unnoticed.

 

The film could fall into the category of ‘coming-of-age’….but with a jolt! When asked what was the main inspiration behind the film she replied: “Trips with my Dad (also a film director), there’s something about being isolated on a camping trip or trapped on a road trip that lays relationship dynamics bare”.

 

The film stars Lily Collias (remarkable in her first lead role) as seventeen-year-old Sam, who is roped into joining her downbeat, divorced Dad, Chris (James Le Gros) and his disorganised, ill-prepared best buddy, Matt (Danny McCarthy), on a three-day hiking trip in the Catskills. Matt’s teenage son was meant to have come too but has dropped out at the last moment (another dent in his father’s battered ego!), leaving Sam as the odd one out. At first, it all goes well: she puts up with their ‘banter’ and bickering and simply rolls her eyes when it veers a bit too close to misogyny for her taste. She is the audience, umpire and even fleetingly, the centre of attention, caught in the fraught relationship between two insecure and disappointed men….and then, a few inappropriate words tilt the balance and rupture the trip, casting the trio’s relationships in a new, ugly light. A film of quiet intelligence and emotional depth.

 

When Donaldson was asked which audience would she like, she replied, “teenagers”. We must, therefore, dig deep inside and resurrect our teenage selves as we watch!

 

Annie Cartland

with acknowledgments to The Sundance Institute/The Week.