Directed by: Taylor Sheridan
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Gil Birmingham, Graham Greene
Rated R, 107 minutes
If last year’s “Hell or High Water” was Taylor Sheridan’s American crime masterpiece made for the hottest day of summer, then “Wind River” is his opus for the coldest night of winter. Part mystery, part thriller, and part family drama, “Wind River” is every bit as exciting as its spiritual predecessor, and as a continuation of Sheridan’s exploration of the morality of the American West, it’s every bit as challenging.
Set in the snowy plains of Wyoming, “Wind River” begins as a simple murder mystery. After a hunter finds a young woman dead on an Indian reservation miles from the nearest town, FBI Agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen, “Captain America: Civil War”) comes to the reservation to investigate. Out of her element both in the harsh weather and among people who harbor suspicions of out-of-towners, she finds a helpful companion in the hunter who found the body, Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt Locker”). Not only is Cory patient with her big-city ignorance of all things rural, but as a skilled animal tracker, he proves a valuable partner as the case progresses. But finding out how the woman died only raises bigger, more pressing questions: Why is the law so ineffective at helping women in danger? And how should a community plagued by these sorts of tragedies grieve?
This latter question forms the movie’s emotional core. Cory, himself haunted by the unsolved death of his daughter, takes it upon himself to solve this mystery not because he wants to help Jane or prove his own expertise as a tracker, but because he understands that the most important thing he can give the dead woman’s family is closure. As Cory and the dead woman’s father, Martin (Gil Birmingham, “Hell or High Water”), grapple with their grief together, they create a touching portrait of friendship and commiseration and dignity.
As for the mystery itself, it’s not one with many red herrings or surprises, but Sheridan lets the action explode at choice moments, making this an unexpectedly harrowing thriller. Scenes that begin with only faint suspense turn on a dime, and the danger we were expecting amplifies tenfold. The action would almost be over the top if it weren’t for the survivalist ethos that colors the whole film; shootouts and showdowns in the snow may seem like corny set pieces, but in the every-man-for-himself world of “Wind River,” they come with the territory.
That said, for all its engrossing action and emotional heft, the movie struggles with some of the more basic elements of filmmaking. Sprinkled throughout the movie’s runtime are scenes that don’t seem to serve any purpose, several distractingly long monologues, and even a couple of unsuccessful attempts to hide the movie’s technical cracks. Luckily, the movie gets better as it goes along, but those blemishes remain visible (and, unfortunately, memorable). Meanwhile, Renner and Olsen struggle to deliver consistent or believable performances, some of which may be thanks to Sheridan’s script, which never quite makes it clear what Cory and Jane truly need from each other.
That isn’t to say this sloppy craft reflects a lack of talent; rather, the movie’s flaws arise from a misguided attempt to shoehorn realism into the movie’s stark logic. Sheridan’s eagerness to convince us of the film’s “authenticity” is needless and dull, especially compared to his more lurid impulses, and worse still, he falls into the common trap of mistaking tepid cliché for realism. As a result, we’re only distracted from the movie’s moments of actual, unaffected sincerity.
Nevertheless, “Wind River” still warrants attention. If nothing else, Taylor Sheridan is hard at work reinventing the Western, reshaping John Wayne’s free-for-all playground into a merciless gauntlet where only the self-reliant survive. Befitting the tension of our current moment, the characters of Sheridan’s American West are at constant odds with authority, whether it’s the local cops they know by name or the city-dwelling feds from out of state. What emerges from his films is a complicated portrait of communities whose insularity is both their greatest pride and their greatest burden. So while “Wind River” is not itself a great movie, years from now it will remain a useful picture of rural America from a filmmaker who seems to be the only person at the moment holding the camera at that angle.
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 9/8/17.