Why Wind River is the film to watch this summer
From the writer of Sicario and Hell Or High Water, the film follows two agents solving a murder on a Native American reserve.
Monday 7 August 2017 07:40, UK
In a summer of big blockbusters, we should consider taking some time to watch one of the year's most promising indie films.
Wind River, directed by acclaimed screenwriter Taylor Sheridan, stars Elizabeth Olsen and Avenger's star Jeremy Renner as two agents trying to solve a murder on a Native American reserve.
The set is the barren, cold state of Wyoming - the perfect set up for Sheridan's own border trilogy, which started with Sicario in 2015 and Hell Or High Water last year.
The latter was nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay, thus taking Sheridan off the indie map and on the road to commercial success.
But Sheridan's stories aren't too worried about success. Instead, they want to dig deep into the heart of an America very few Hollywood writers venture into.
"I made a story about people who no one makes movies about," Sheridan said about Hell Or High Water, which follows two bank-robbing brothers in rural Texas.
"And it's a group of individuals who are struggling just like everyone else and became a very convenient political bullseye," he added.
Hell Or High Water went on to become the highest grossing indie flick of 2016, scoring a total gross of $27m (£20m) in the US.
While Sheridan has been praised for his writing skills, with Wind River he decided to venture behind the camera for the first time.
"It was the only way I could guarantee that the story was told the way I wanted it told," he said.
"I didn't trust that another filmmaker would come in and see this world the way I saw it, or I didn't know one."
This time, he leaves the poor and downtrodden state of Texas for the conflicted border of the north, where wildlife ranger Cory Lambert, played by Renner, finds the body of a young Native American woman.
Lambert agrees to help FBI agent Jane Banner, played by Olsen, to navigate through the state's wild mountains in search of answers.
"It is an exploration of the modern American frontier and how much it has changed and how much it hasn't changed," Sheridan said.
"In a city where everyone is right on top of each other there are rules that don't apply and won't work in rural America."
Sheridan has no Native American heritage, but did grow up in rural Texas before leaving for LA to pursuit an acting career.
His biggest acting break was as officer David Hale in the popular TV show Sons Of Anarchy, but Sheridan dismisses his qualities as an actor, and would rather see his experience as an essential step into understanding how actors deliver scripts.
"When I write a movie I write it for me," he told Indiewire.
"I let characters be human and flawed and relatable. When we do things that aren't that great we can understand it."
This is what makes Sheridan's scripts so powerful - a certain Hemingway-like honesty in the character's dialogue which still feels fresh and unexplored.
Ultimately, it is his lowbrow approach to filmmaking which makes him a director to follow closely, and a good antidote to .
Wind River opens in UK theatres 8 September.