Dark, Brooding, and Fantastic

The Wind River Reservation is in Wyoming, about halfway between Casper and Jackson. My parents live in Casper, though I didn't grow up there and don't know the area very well. My dad, however, works for USDA Wildlife services in Wyoming, and the main character in Wind River would also work for USDAWS, if the film had its facts straight (Director/Writer Taylor Sheridan has him working for Fish & Wildlife, but they don't shoot coyotes who kill sheep. That's my dad's job.)

All of this to say that Wind River hits unusually close to home for me. This is a movie about people I know.

While tracking a mountain lion with a taste for cattle, Corey Lambert (Jeremy Renner) finds a young Native woman frozen in the snow, six miles from the nearest...anything. It looks as though she has been assaulted, raped, and probably murdered. He knows her parents; this girl and his daughter were once best friends, but his daughter died a similar death three years before. She was sixteen. Renner's grief is palpable, and you can quickly see the way it has torn his family apart.

Because the crime takes place on the reservation, the FBI arrives in the form of Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olson). This is, unfortunately, where the film departs from reality for the sake of drama. Everything I've heard about federal crimes on the reservation is that the FBI only ever shows up late-sometimes months or years late-if at all.

Banner is from Florida, doesn't own a winter jacket, and has never been on a snowmobile, which is the primary way Corey and the Wind River tribal police get around. She's green, but she's not dumb; she knows that she's out of her element and needs help, so she enlists Corey's help to find the killer.

Graham Greene plays the tribal police chief, who has seen too much and put too many of his own people in prison. He doesn't hold out much hope that this case will ever be closed, or maybe he knows that even if it is, it won't make much difference.

Though it uses the structure of a police procedural, Sheridan is clearly interested in making a movie that is more than that. It's not really twisty or tense enough to work strictly as a procedural; there's not much mystery regarding what happened.

The tone, enhanced substantially by cinematography from Ben Richardson, is dark and brooding, full of despair and grief. Gil Birmingham plays the murdered girl's father, and he is really the heart of the film. He delivers an unforgettable performance in only a few scenes; his loss is incalculable, and there is no justice that can make him whole again.

This is a brutally violent movie that never glorifies its violence. Every time a gun is fired or a punch is thrown, you feel it viscerally, and it takes a moment or two to recover. And when things ramp up to the climax, there is no time to recover.

Aside from a title card at the end about the number of missing Native American women, Wind River is pretty light on social commentary. Frankly, I wish there were a little more here.

I think the main point the filmmakers intend to make is that crimes like this are all too common, and aren't likely to stop any time soon. Wind River is a fantastic movie, but it's also a very heavy one, that will leave you sitting in the theater, staring at the screen long after the credits roll.

Wind River reminded me more than a little of the very good TV show Longmire, available on Netflix. They both take place on the same reservation. Robert Taylor plays the sheriff of the fictional Absoroka County in Wyoming.

Walt Longmire often has to work with people on the Wind River reservation, including Zahn McLarnon, who plays the chief of police, and A Martinez, who plays a casino owner and tribal politicians. Perhaps because it is a TV show, Longmire is able to bring a lot more complexity to the relationships between Longmire and the Native characters, and the show carefully avoids stereotypes about Native Americans. It's a fine show, and if you have watched it and like it, you'll probably like Wind River-and vice versa.

Willie Krishchke and his wife work with InterVarsity in Durango, Colorado, where his wife directs Native Ministries for InterVarsity.