It's hard to begin a discussion of Wind River without acknowledging the recent pedigree of writer-director Taylor Sheridan. Over the past two years, Sheridan has emerged from a supporting role on Sons of Anarchy to write exquisite scripts for Sicario and Hell or High Water, both of which suggested him as a major talent in film writing. When news broke that he'd be directing a film as well, anticipation was high; after all, when your first two films were that good, how could they not be?
The surprising thing about Wind River, then, is that it's actually Sheridan's weakest script by some margin, boasting less nuanced characterization, uneven dialogue, and some dubious survivalist philosophy. Instead, what makes the film thrilling is Sheridan's assured direction, emphasizing a harsh, freezing sense of place and crafting from that not only great tension but great action as well. Above all else, it possesses a taut, bleak beauty which allows it to transcend the deficiencies of its script and become compelling in spite of itself.
Cory (Jeremy Renner) is a hunter employed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Agency to take out large predators which become a problem at the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. He's tied to the reservation through his ex-wife and her family, and becomes embroiled in a local tragedy when a young woman is found raped and murdered miles from her home. Offering to help find the killer, he's joined by out-of-her-depth FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) and police chief Ben (Graham Greene), with little other backup and few resources.
The opening scenes of Wind River immediately impart a sense of isolation and struggle. One of the first scenes features Renner riding a snowmobile, commissioned to take out a lion which has encroached on the reservation, and travelling in heavy winter clothes through an empty field of snow, just to find a dead, frozen body laying still just at the edge of this empty expanse. At one point, Jane mentions that it's Spring, but everything onscreen is frozen, at best reflecting sunlight and at worst obscured by a blizzard. This sense of place gives the film a cold, forbidding atmosphere, and lends texture to its generally straightforward crime story.
Unlike many films with similar premises, there's no convoluted succession of clues leading up to the killer. Instead, Cory and Jane simply work through what few people are available to talk with before stumbling into their conclusion. The eponymous town isn't especially populous, so simply traversing the distance between suspects and clues is much more significant than sorting through those clues. As a result, the focus of the film is less on actually finding the killer and more on the bleak isolation of the reserve. The FBI and the Bureau of Indian Affairs provide no assistance, and we meet people defined by loss and despair, some of whom have turned to drugs to deal with the isolation and tedium of life on the reserve.
That's the first of Wind River's key themes: the historical neglect and marginalization of indigenous communities in the United States. The emphasis on the extreme environment of this reservation is given context by conversations about how it's the only thing the people living there still have. Everything else has been taken from them, so all they have is this miserable patch of land. The film is hardly subtle about this theme, and a few characters - especially Cory - deliver exposition about how the conditions on the reserve have led to its squalor and decay.
However, Cory himself is one of the film's bigger issues. Unlike the protagonists of Sheridan's previous films, his morality is mostly unambiguous, and his sheer skill sometimes makes him feel almost like a superhero. He's easily Sheridan's least complex protagonist yet, and even a strained attempt to tie the current murder case with the death of his daughter and the subsequent breakdown of his marriage struggles to be more than a cliche. He spends a few scenes with his son, but these add little to his already rote internal conflict. If nothing else, though, it's strongly implied that the death of his own daughter is a major inspiration for his involvement in this case, and although that's a cliche in and of itself, it gives him some nuance.
Furthermore, for all of the film's strong themes about the neglect and decay which affect indigenous communities, it's sometimes awkward to hear a white star like Jeremy Renner talking about the experiences of Native Americans. Thankfully, the film at least seems aware of this, and at one point the character is even called out on his lack of native heritage. Furthermore, the themes are spouted just as often by actual indigenous actors, such as Graham Greene and Gil Birmingham, the latter of whom gives a powerfully melancholic performance as Martin, the father of the victim and a friend of Cory's. Wind River is filled with excellent performances, and while Greene and Birmingham stand out, Renner also elevates his part, taking on a hard, stoic persona which only enhances the bleak atmosphere.
Olsen, meanwhile, plays much the same role as Emily Blunt in Sicario, although with less emphasis on her naivete. Jane is still out of her depth, and spends much of the film providing what little compassion the outside world can offer. Largely, she's relegated to reacting to Cory and complaining about the weather, though she does generate some tension through being an outside force in the reserve, and she gets a chance to shine in a particularly tense Mexican Standoff near the end. For the most part, however, she's not the primary focus, with much more attention given to Corey and his nuanced motivations.
Unfortunately, the lines the film has them read are often wildly cliched. At one point, Cory is even told that he "won't find the answers he's looking for," and clunkers like that are hardly the exception. When the script can keep its pretenses in check, the direction and atmosphere takes over, but on several occasions, the sober performances and audiovisual beauty barely manage to give some dignity to the seriously weak dialogue. The film's main themes are often clumsily exposited, sometimes in ways which don't properly flow into the main plot, and this is often at its most conspicuous when Cory rambles about survival and resilience, which unfortunately forms much of Sheridan's worldview. At worst, that survivalist philosophy feels a little like macho posturing, which was surely not the intention.
And yet, when the cliches and bad dialogue become distracting, the film will offer up yet another gorgeously bleak vista accompanied by Nick Cave's haunting score. That sense of place is compounded by Sheridan's skillfully terse direction. He uses many of the same tricks Denis Villeneuve employed in Sicario, slowly unveiling new layers of misery to this deeply tangible setting. But where Villeneuve sketched out the horrors of the U.S.-Mexico border, here every new revelation adds another degree of melancholy, and when Sheridan's trademark sudden violence breaks out, it's every bit as tense, dangerous, and exciting as it was in either Sicario or Hell or High Water.
For all of its script issues, Wind River is a haunting, tense experience, and Sheridan's obvious talents as a director work with a phenomenal cast to paper over the cliches and bad dialogue and enhance the deep tones of melancholy and overpowering sense of isolation which are baked into the very foundation of this story. It's a bleakly stunning film in spite of itself, at its best when nobody is talking, but also packed with enough texture to provide some power to even its most tired, well-worn elements. If it's not quite a great movie, it's still one with merit, and it's a convincing argument for Sheridan as a director. Hopefully next time he writes himself a better script.
7/10
+ Bleak, beautiful cinematography.
+ Palpable sense of isolation and despair.
+ Great performances all around.
- Weak dialogue in parts.
- Corey is Sheridan's least complex protagonist yet.
- Some plot elements are overly familiar.
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Todd Throndson
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