God’s Country (Thandie Newton, Neo-Western Thriller)

[Himmel]

Westworld Emmy winning actress Thandie Newton will headline Julian Higgins’ feature directorial debut God’s Country for Cold Iron Pictures and The Film Arcade, Deadline has learned.

The neo-Western thriller is set in the bleak winter landscape of the Mountain West. Newton plays a college professor living on her own at the edge of the national forest. One day she confronts two hunters trespassing on her land, triggering a battle of wills with dangerous ramifications.

“Julian and Shaye’s radical new take on James Lee Burke’s story is a nuanced response to the times in which we live,” said Bailey. “We are thrilled to be working on this powerful film that puts Thandie’s remarkable acting talent front and center.”

Screenwriter Shaye Ogbonna adapted the script with Higgins from James Lee Burke’s short story Winter Light. Burke is The New York Times bestselling author of the Dave Robicheaux detective series and numerous other novels.

(Deadline)

[The Great Owl]

Four stars

Shortly after her mother's death, Sandra, a university professor played by Thandiwe Newton, arrives at her secluded Montana cabin to find a truck parked in her driveway. She leaves a note on the windshield to inform the trespassers that they are on private property, but later finds the note crumpled in the snow. When the truck returns the following day, she confronts the intruders, a father and an adult son, only to be told that they use her property because it provides them the easiest access for hunting in the bordering forest. After she sees the truck yet again and tows it from her lot, the men retaliate by shooting an arrow into her front door.

As these uneasy interactions escalate into a full-blown feud, Sandra, a former New Orleans native who is a fish out of water in this rural wilderness setting, is told by a local deputy, the only lawman serving a 300-mile territory, that his abilities to help are limited. Meanwhile, Sandra is also battling passive racism and discrimination from the associates at her college. As the walls close in on this outsider in a hostile land, she must rely on her own resources to brave the dangers.

The 2022 thriller, God's Country, directed by Julian Higgins, proceeds through its narrative with an air of restraint and subtlety, as if to convey the quiet resignation felt by disenfranchised people when the mechanisms that are put in place to protect them prove to be ineffective. Newton's performance as a beleaguered character in a mostly white community is masterfully executed, especially during long non-dialogue sequences that convey both her toughness and her wary vulnerability, but the story portrays the father and son antagonists, played by Joris Jarsky and Jefferson White, with surprising humanity as well, implying that they have a rightful reason to resent the authorities.

An inability to communicate is a central theme in this tale, reflecting our real present-day world where many have seen friends and relatives succumb to extreme political polarization on social media. In one of this film's best scenes, a conversation between Newton's Sandra and one of the hunters in a church sanctuary offers a brief glimpse of hope with regard to finding common ground, but ultimately ends in bitter animosity. In keeping with this aesthetic of isolation, the wintry Montana setting is shown not as an idyllic landscape, but as an uncannily claustrophobic place where no safety is guaranteed.

God's Country holds its cards close to the vest, without explaining every background detail to the audience. The occasionally unfocused low-key ambience may frustrate viewers who want the plot developments to unfold in more conventional manner, but I rather like the leisurely pace. As in real-life, when daily news headlines can give one the impression that we are all on a downward spiral death march, one can be forgiven for wanting time to stand still if things are not going to end well.