Title: Wind River
Director: Taylor Sheridan
Cast: Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Gil Birmingham, Jon Bernthal, Julia Jones, Kelsey Chow, Graham Greene, Martin Sensmeier, Tyler Laracca, Gerald Tokala Clifford, James Jordan, Eric Lange, Ian Bohen.
‘Wind River’ is a neo-Western murder mystery film written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, marking his directorial feature debut from ‘Sicario’ and Oscar-nominated ‘Hell or High Water.’ The movie awarded the filmmaker Un Certain Regard Best Directing Prize in Cannes.
The film stars Jeremy Renner as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tracker and Elizabeth Olsen as an FBI agent, who try to solve a murder on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. The storytelling is gripping and suspenseful thanks to the convincing performances by the entire cast, especially lead actors Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen. The setting also contributes in nurturing the sense of oppression of the thriller, as the frosty, inhospitable American mountain region is economically tainted and atmospherically penalized.
The story was inspired by true events, involving sexual assault of women on reservations. The film couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time, when the Weinstein case opened Pandora’s box, showing us that the emperor has no clothes. In fact, writer-director Taylor Sheridan and producers Matthew George and Basil Iwanyk have taken the film back from the Weinstein Company and begun to screen it without the distributor’s name. Furthermore – since ‘Wind River’ is about the rape and murder of a Northern Arapaho woman – Sheridan announced he would donate all future royalties to a Montana-based Native American women’s advocacy group. The windy tale, depicting the lives of people on edge, will leave a sour taste for the hard-nosed portrait of a bleak and less known part of the U.S.A.
Acting: B
Story: B
Overall: B
Written by: Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi
