As youngsters go — and allow us to permit for some hormonal leeway right here — 17-year-old Sam is what most would name a superb one: good, considerate, grounded, self-sufficient however not averse to recommendation, the sort of child that oldsters can’t assist bragging about, as their associates want their very own nightmare offspring had been somewhat extra like her. However such a popularity has its draw back, as elders take the teenager’s compliance and good humor without any consideration, and anticipate undue allowances for their very own irresponsibilities. Author-director India Donaldson probes that awkward reversal of roles with delicacy and care in her debut characteristic “Good One,” monitoring the white lies and purple flags that emerge over the course of a father-daughter tenting weekend in upstate New York.

Premiering within the U.S. Dramatic competitors at this yr’s Sundance competition, “Good One” is modest however assuredly perceptive unbiased filmmaking that makes no grand claims for itself over a slim 89-minute runtime. As a substitute, the movie invitations viewers to look nearer, to determine consequential fault traces and factors of identification in what may outwardly appear a low-stakes narrative. Maybe it’s unintended that Donaldson’s premise recollects Kelly Reichardt’s 2006 miniature “Outdated Pleasure” as if replayed 20 years on — with a brand new, almost grownup interloper muddling the once-comfy dynamic between two middle-aged associates on a woodsy retreat. However there’s definitely some resemblance right here to the quiet, subtext-led simmer of Reichardt’s filmmaking, during which throwaway traces and actions purchase unstated weight as hours, after which days, and even perhaps years, go by.

However that’s getting forward of the movie and its tight three-day timeframe — a mere snapshot of longstanding relationships, however lengthy sufficient to discern tensions which have been brewing, and affections which have been shifting, for fairly a while. Fiftysomething contractor Chris (James Le Gros) seems to be on nice phrases with Sam (Lily Collias), his solely little one, who takes his dad jokes and infrequently clumsy traces of private questioning with good grace; he’s a sincerely loving and mum or dad, and has evidently accepted her out-and-proud queerness with out problem. There could also be sparkles of pique on her half stemming from her dad and mom’ divorce and Chris’s blameful function therein, however by and huge, she’s matured and let go of youthful resentments.

Faculty beckons, and with it unbiased maturity. The Catskills tenting journey Chris and Sam are planning may simply be the newest in an extended household custom of them, however there’s an air of finality to this one — a way that their roles gained’t be fairly the identical going ahead. They’re not going alone: Chris’s oldest buddy Matt (Danny McCarthy) is to hitch them, alongside along with his personal teenage son, although their relationship is rockier than that between Chris and Sam. On the final minute, the surly lad drops out, leaving Matt — a raveled former actor with none of his pal’s outdoorsy expertise — an ungainly third wheel on this poignant father-daughter journey.

Sam doesn’t thoughts — it’s her nature to not. However there’s a rising sense of imbalance to the way in which these two bluff older males converse with this quiet younger girl, typically utilizing her as a sounding board for his or her middle-aged grievances and self-pity, and praising her for her perspicacious responses in a means that feels each condescending and somewhat conditional. Sam is permitted, to a degree, to be jovially vital of their blundering masculinity, however on their phrases solely: She’s both blanked or cautioned when she will get too candid for his or her liking.

Because the trio decide their means throughout rocks and rivers, their chatter rambles easily and cheerfully sufficient that you simply don’t initially discover how one-sided it’s: A full day passes earlier than anybody asks Sam something significant about herself. And when, one night time by the campfire, a jokey alternate between Sam and Matt veers discomfitingly over the road, it quickly turns into clear that, regardless of Chris’s personal rising irritation along with his buddy, she’s one in opposition to two — and as soon as once more anticipated to be the younger-but-bigger particular person within the face of her elders’ flaws. Donaldson’s keen-eared script deftly avoids the head-on confrontations that may be a lot simpler to provoke within the films than in life, because the characters as a substitute check and admonish one another through passive-aggressive gestures and politely loaded observations.

First seen two years in the past in a secondary function in “Palm Bushes and Energy Traces,” Collias impresses in a job that doesn’t grant her any nice extremes of expression. Sam’s temperate demeanor could merely be her nature, however Collias’s tautly wired efficiency exhibits the way it’s additionally a protection; Wilson Cameron’s digital camera gazes at her lengthy sufficient in gentle, sun-dappled closeup that we ultimately see the clenched muscle tissue behind the calm. An excellent Le Gros mirrors her composure whereas additionally having fun with the posh of outward-facing, alpha-male surges of anger and irritation; McCarthy presents a louder slacker loucheness that regularly creates extra pressure than it breaks.

The friction between these three conflicting energies builds to a climax that some viewers may discover unduly low-key — an open-ended deadlock maybe extra attribute of quick movie construction — however that additionally feels true to the characters and their ongoing lives. It takes greater than a weekend for a “good one” to claim their extra demanding issues, however Donaldson’s sly, watchful debut brings Sam to the brink of one thing — not simply maturity, however a revised view of her childhood, a realization extra seismic than any shouting match.