Director and co-writer Julian Higgins previously adapted a short story by James Lee Burke into a short film regarding a cranky old man who lives a solitary life in a mountain canyon as he rages against the loss of the old west. Higgins wanted to escalate the contemporary and political relevance of the story for his feature directorial debut, so he teamed with Shaye Ogbonna and switched the main protagonist to a black woman from New Orleans. The modified script emerged with incremental battles regarding gender and racial discrimination, but maintains the rural rugged characters and western backdrop. The result is Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River smashed up with Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman.
The film stars Thandiwe Newton as a university professor who is grieving the loss of her mother in the solitude afforded by her rural, mountain cabin. The professor’s home is increasingly encroached upon by two local hunters, who defy her requests to stay off her land. Law enforcement, like an old western, is limited to a single sheriff clearly in over his head. Higgins’s script takes the time to unfold the complexity and source of each character’s personal baggage but doesn’t give it anywhere else to go except a predicable climax. Inexplicably, an intriguing plot development with the sheriff dead ends and the final act plays out bleakly, obviously symbolizing the irreconcilable schism in religious and political viewpoints in the US.
Still, Thandiwe Newton’s performance, Higgins’ taut direction and outstanding camera work by Andrew Wheeler come together to deliver a satisfying thriller. Thandiwe Newton’s career has continuously impressed since her breakout performance along side Nicole Kidman and Noah Taylor in the 1991 Australian coming of age film Flirting. Newton has received nominations and won several ensemble and supporting awards for her contributions in everything from the Academy Award winning best picture Crash to an Emmy in HBO’s Westworld. But in God’s Country, she is finally given the opportunity to carry a film nearly single-handedly. And she kills it.
