Wind River Synopsis
Wind River is a mystery thriller starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen of The Avengers. This movie unfolds as a true mystery and ends as a white knuckling thriller. A Fish and Wildlife hunter Cory Lambert (Renner,) is on the hunt for a mountain lion family that has been feeding on livestock. Instead, he finds a young Native American woman dead in the Wyoming snow, barefoot and bloodied.
The FBI sends a lone rookie agent, Jane Banner (Olsen,) to Wyoming to assess the situation. After deciding the girl’s death was a homicide, she stays with Cole and the tribal police to hunt down the girls killer.
What I Enjoyed
The film never tries to make you feel good arbitrarily out of the consequence of the harsh story. Wind River is based on true events and it feels very real. It’s a brutal story about reservation residents who aren’t afforded many resources and have basically been forgotten. Life for many Native American’s is difficult, and this film does a great job showing this.
The run time is perfect at one hour and 47 minutes. It doesn’t waste any time. You’re engaged and on the edge of your seat from start to finish, and it makes it seem shorter than it is. Proof you can tell a meaningful story in under two hours.
The scenery and cinematography are on point. Long drawn out shots of the Wyoming landscape and the silence of the wilderness set a bleak, and beautiful scene. The Wyoming winter is an all encompassing presence through out the movie, for the good and the bad.
Photo: Fred Hayes
© 2017 The Weinstein Company. All Rights Reserved
What Made Me Cringe
Nothing made me cringe, this movie is excellent on every level. That being said, I wish the Native American characters had more screen time. I wouldn’t have minded an extra 15 or 20 minutes exploring more of the culture and the relationships, but I could see how this could bog down the pacing, which is a strength of the film.
Pleasant Surprises
The film sheds light on the dark truths of modern Native American culture. I walked away wanting to learn more. This story has really stuck with me, the sign of a good film is when it takes up mental space long after you walked out of the theatre.
Overall Rating
I give Wind River 9/10. This is an intense thriller with a dark story in a bleak setting. The acting feels real and the plot is tight and wraps up nicely. I was left wanting more of the Native American culture in the film, but the pacing the story’s lasting effect more than make up for it.
Don’t expect to leave Wind River in a glowing mood, but with an intense realization about people you may not know much about. Sometimes art reflects life, in this case, the truth is unsettling.
