Thandiwe, as she spells her first name, finally has a role that she can truly sink her teeth into. God’s Country, a disturbing, unusually class-and-race-conscious modern Western that paints a pretty despairing view of human relations in red state America. Julian Higgins, co-director and writer, is slow and filled with negative emotions. He takes his sweet time exploring both the troubling and unfriendly mindsets. In fact, Fences would have been an appropriate title for this quiet, simmering study on people who bring little but their ill-will to it.
Higgins must know something about academics or trespassing. His 2004 debut feature was his first. Mending WallHis 2015 short story, “The Short of It,” dealt with conflicts in a New England small town. Winter LightThe story was about a fight between two hunters and a college professor who invade his property. His film is set in a Western mountain state with sparsely populated areas. There is no dialogue for the first eight minutes. This serves as a foreshadowing of the ill-will and resentments that will soon dominate the drama. The question could be asked to each character of the cast. “Can’t we all just get along?, “ the answer from both sides would be a resounding, sinister “No!”
Sandra (Newton) bids goodbye to her colleagues and students just before winter break. “Sometimes it feels like things never change. But I promise you they do. They have to.” Generally out West, locals tend to be friendly, if sometimes also a bit guarded, but when two young men drive onto Sandra’s property and agreeably ask if they can park nearby so they can hike further up into the mountains, she bluntly refuses them permission.
The locals arrive back the next day, park their trucks and drive up the woods, without saying a word. Sandra had moved their vehicle to another location when they returned. By this time we’re a half-hour into the movie and about all we’ve seen are micro-aggressions that don’t speak well of anyone’s attitudes or openness to being friendly good neighbors.
Over the next day or two things escalate further, as Sandra tells the town’s acting sheriff that she has “definitely been made to feel threatened.” In a small community like this where everyone knows each other and two officers have to cover an area of 300 square miles, there’s normally a “go-along-to-get-along”A tacitly friendly attitude that gives people room to maneuver and allows them to make amends for minor issues. Sandra has never adopted this mindset. The good-old-boys respond to Sandra’s unfriendliness by putting an arrow in her front door and you begin to wonder if some Straw DogsYou can expect a similar behavior.
This is when you realize that God’s Country is an odd film that’s providing very little idea of where it’s going. Could it be about class mistrust She actually visits the house of one of the rednecks at one point and asks bluntly. “Why are you like this?” Or is it more to do with Sandra’s depression? A few recent events in her past that were eventually made public shed some light on her behavior. God’s Country eventually emerges as a piece that means to hold its central figure’s attitudes and actions to account, a bracing approach for this kind of character piece to adopt.
Even though Sandra’s belligerent behavior grows increasingly disturbing, the forthright attitude the film ultimately takes toward her issues emerges as quite refreshing. The film’s writer-director and the lead actor are not begging for sympathy. Newton dives deeper and more deeply into her character than she has ever had the chance to. Sandra’s aggressiveness and lack of interest in being nice are quite unusual characteristics in a leading role like this and it leaves you with much to consider about her character in terms of what drove her to leave New Orleans, to develop such an uncooperative attitude and to want to cut herself off to such an extent.
She goes up to the front door of an unfriendly foe and asks directly. “Why are you like this?,”She should just as easily ask the same question to herself. As smart as she is, she’ll probably ask it one day and come up with a well-considered answer.
Although small films like this are rare to inspire sequels, it is an example where one could be welcome.