Awards Season is in full flower (Oscar nominations announce on January 23rd), and here's hoping writer-director Taylor Sheridan's very deliberate scouring of all the films' ties to the Weinstein Company allow voters to appreciate this phenomenal drama/thriller sans any association with that fallen pariah.
Sheridan is one of the best screenwriters working today, having penned both Sicario and Hell or High Water, before making his mainstream directing debut here, also from his own script. Sheridan well understands the rhythms of the American West's more remote environments, that the modern world has somehow bypassed.
Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) is a tracker for the Fish and Wildlife Service in the Wyoming high country and the surrounding Wind River reservation. It's a community he knows well - married into it, had children, endured heartache and moved on. Foremost, he's a hunter, whose job is to find the rogue wolf or mountain lion that threatens the community's herds.
It's on one such patrol that he finds the frozen body of a young woman, clearly the victim of sexual violence. Murder on a reservation falls under the jurisdiction of the F.B.I., who sends an earnest but woefully under-prepared agent (Elizabeth Olsen) to learn what happened. She's in desperate need of a guide who knows the land and its people.
To say more would be to rob you of the surprises and ferocity of Sheridan's storytelling, and the work of his superb cast. Renner and Olsen leave their Age of Ultron heroics behind for roles of quiet realism. Sheridan proves to be just as sure of a hand behind the camera as he is on the page, and crafts a gripping, heart-rending story that's part police-procedural, part cowboy-noir, with social commentary that extends far beyond the marginalized people it depicts, and the apathy with which they're treated. Graham Greene is terrific as a local law enforcer, and Gil Birmingham - so memorable as Jeff Bridges' partner in Hell or High Water, shines even brighter here as the father dealing with a tragic loss.
If Wind River has any shortcomings, it's that there's really no reason not to have the protagonist be Native American. Renner is absolutely superb here - but reliance on a name Caucasian star seems a deal born out of demographics that perpetuates the notion of a White Savior - or Costner - necessary to bring any kind of justice.
Given the themes at work in the film, it's easy to see why Sheridan was repulsed by any hint of association with Weinstein and dissolved any connections. The movie is now financed by the Tunica-Biloxi tribe of Louisiana, whose Economic Development Corporation supported the film, with profits going to the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting Native women and children against gender-based violence - a fitting legacy.
Wind River is without a doubt one of the most gripping films of the year and will utterly wreck your emotions. I hope it finds the audience and acclaim it deserves. Overflowing with heart, it will leave tracks you may have a hard time shaking.
Sheridan is one of the best screenwriters working today, having penned both Sicario and Hell or High Water, before making his mainstream directing debut here, also from his own script. Sheridan well understands the rhythms of the American West's more remote environments, that the modern world has somehow bypassed.
Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) is a tracker for the Fish and Wildlife Service in the Wyoming high country and the surrounding Wind River reservation. It's a community he knows well - married into it, had children, endured heartache and moved on. Foremost, he's a hunter, whose job is to find the rogue wolf or mountain lion that threatens the community's herds.
It's on one such patrol that he finds the frozen body of a young woman, clearly the victim of sexual violence. Murder on a reservation falls under the jurisdiction of the F.B.I., who sends an earnest but woefully under-prepared agent (Elizabeth Olsen) to learn what happened. She's in desperate need of a guide who knows the land and its people.
To say more would be to rob you of the surprises and ferocity of Sheridan's storytelling, and the work of his superb cast. Renner and Olsen leave their Age of Ultron heroics behind for roles of quiet realism. Sheridan proves to be just as sure of a hand behind the camera as he is on the page, and crafts a gripping, heart-rending story that's part police-procedural, part cowboy-noir, with social commentary that extends far beyond the marginalized people it depicts, and the apathy with which they're treated. Graham Greene is terrific as a local law enforcer, and Gil Birmingham - so memorable as Jeff Bridges' partner in Hell or High Water, shines even brighter here as the father dealing with a tragic loss.
If Wind River has any shortcomings, it's that there's really no reason not to have the protagonist be Native American. Renner is absolutely superb here - but reliance on a name Caucasian star seems a deal born out of demographics that perpetuates the notion of a White Savior - or Costner - necessary to bring any kind of justice.
Given the themes at work in the film, it's easy to see why Sheridan was repulsed by any hint of association with Weinstein and dissolved any connections. The movie is now financed by the Tunica-Biloxi tribe of Louisiana, whose Economic Development Corporation supported the film, with profits going to the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting Native women and children against gender-based violence - a fitting legacy.
Wind River is without a doubt one of the most gripping films of the year and will utterly wreck your emotions. I hope it finds the audience and acclaim it deserves. Overflowing with heart, it will leave tracks you may have a hard time shaking.
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