17-year-old Sam goes on a camping trip with her father and his best friend. The two men josh and joke as they hike, stressing about their careers and cracking dirty jokes. Sam mostly puts up with it – until one of them crosses the line.
On a hiking trip in the Catskills and its primeval waterfalls, rocky trails, vegetation, butterflies and insects oblivious to all human concerns, a divorced father, his daughter and his oldest friend, former actor Matt, seemingly hit it off well. Subtly attuned to relationship dynamics, the film charts the slow escalation of tension between the precocious teen and the two immature middle-aged men – arriving at a moment of truth that, on the cusp of adulthood, carries more weight than any argument could ever have.
“I don’t know if my seven siblings or my parents would agree, but as I reflected on my youth, I really felt that need to keep the peace. I was always very uncomfortable with conflict and would avoid it at all costs. And then as I got older, I started to realize that was an unhealthy way of being in the world. It actually didn’t serve me in my relationships or my professional life. /…/ It’s positive to be praised as good or easy-going and I certainly fed off of that kind of praise. But that can be a challenging way of asserting yourself. Certainly in coming into my own as a filmmaker, I had to push against that need to be always pleasing everyone.” (India Donaldson)