“God’s Nation” belongs in a time capsule.
The indie drama reveals how woke storytelling can crush a movie’s artistic soul. The plot’s potential is obvious, and the solid is able to spinning one thing profound out of the themes in play.
But over and once more a woke hand reaches into the narrative and rips out the movie’s beating coronary heart.
Thandiwe Newton stars as Sandra, a professor in a Montana city that didn’t assist Joe Biden win the 2020 election. She’s mourning the lack of her mom because the story opens, however her grief is interrupted by hunters parked on her wooded property.
They didn’t ask permission to deposit their purple (get it?) truck on her driveway, and he or she’s none too glad about it.
That rigidity grows after Sandra asks native regulation enforcement to have her again within the dustup. There’s little they’ll do, they declare, forcing the professor to take issues into her personal fingers. Her empathy makes some headway with one of many hunters (Joris Jarsky), however others in the neighborhood (together with her boss) aren’t receptive to her progressive methods.
Primarily based on the brief story “Winter Gentle” by James Lee Burke, “God’s Nation” is 2 films in a single. The principle story is obvious – a showdown between an enlightened Sandra and yokels with little persistence for her e-book learnin’ and fancy talkin’.
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First-time director Julian Higgins has a style story on his fingers, however he refuses to lean into its trappings. The tempo is sluggish, and Sandra proves difficult to root for on the floor. She’s withdrawn and centered, solely coming to life when she’s in a classroom setting.
The “second” movie gives an educational showdown between Sandra and her (presumably) bigoted friends. Higgins handles the B story with all of the grace of Michael Moore on Election Day.
Sandra’s push for a range rent runs right into a brick wall. Given the tenor of our instances, she may have had her boss’ scalp, and a hefty bonus besides, for her Identification Politics campaign (even in a purple state).
As a substitute, it’s a part of Sandra’s downward spiral. And when the 2 films fuse into one “God’s Nation” goes down for the depend.
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Sandra’s reference to a neighborhood cop results in the movie’s huge reveal, one other absurd word in a movie swimming in them.
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Why would one of many movie’s educational all-stars be seen with the native knuckle draggers, not to mention act like they’re long-lost buddies?
“God’s Nation” can’t resist just a few style tropes, however the screenplay shrewdly offers Sandra some palpable flaws. Her push for progress reveals her self-absorbed pose when an try to assist a feminine peer blows up in her face.
Sandra by no means veers into a brilliant heroine with weapons a-blazing, both. As a substitute, her ethical outrage grows by levels because the injustices pile up round her. The screenplay nonetheless delivers some ham-fisted moments unworthy of Newton.
There’s little the actress can do to make Sandra’s journey practical or revelatory.
It goes with out saying Higgins and co. paint the purple state varieties as backward, whereas Sandra’s flawed soul is the movie’s ethical core. We’ve come to count on that lopsided storytelling from Hollywood, Inc., however the movie’s woke impulses make issues worse.
The movie’s finest sequence takes place in a church. Sandra meets one in every of her stalkers and, quite than demean his religion she makes use of the second to seek out frequent floor. It’s a splendidly directed scene and, probably, a approach for “God’s Nation” to seek out its objective.
As a substitute, it’s left behind for a group of victimhood tics that, irrespective of how artfully assembled, can’t maintain a function movie.
HiT or Miss: “God’s Nation” gussies up its style story with arthouse aspirations earlier than the movie’s woke messaging arrives.
