Amsterdam (2022)

Direction: David O. Russell
Country: USA 

Seven years after the dispensable Joy, writer-director-producer David O. Russell releases Amsterdam, assembling an impressive ensemble cast that nothing could do to make his period comedy thriller less underwhelming. The story is based on the Business Plot, a 1933 political conspiracy that intended to install a dictator in the place of the American president Franklin D. Roosevelt. The topic still applies to our days since constant threats to democracy hover over our heads for some time, but as a film, Amsterdam is a sketchy exercise where every move turns out mediocre, if not downright silly. It never feels authentic.

Working with the director for the third time (following the more successful American Hustle and The Fighter), Christan Bale is Burt Berendsen, a doctor scarred by the war who's not afraid to dive into experimental medicine. He and his former war buddy turned lawyer, Harold Woodman (John David Washington), will have to clear their name when accused of a crime they didn’t commit. For that matter, they have the help of nurse Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie) and a couple of spies (Mike Myers, Michael Shannon). 

Too busy crushing his excellent actors under the period mise-en-scène, Russell doesn’t seem to know how to make this story interesting, setting a trap for himself. Amsterdam completely collapses both as comedy and thriller, bogged down in apathy and prosaic temperance. The amazing actors, completely drowned in automatism and formal discipline, are unable to show off feelings. Besides protracted, the film remains too derivative, superficial, and humorless to produce an acceptable outcome.

Dos Estaciones (2022)

Direction: Juan Pablo Gonzalez
Country: Mexico 

Juan Pablo Gonzalez's feature length debut, Dos Estaciones, is set in Atotonilco El Alto, Jalisco, where the California-based writer-director was born and raised. Inspired by members of his own family in direct relation with the tequila business, Gonzalez presents a realistic rural drama and contemporary portrait of the region with a strong female character at the center. 

The modern machinery and the traditional Mexican village almost strive to coexist together, in a story about an adamant tequila rancher, Maria Garcia (Teresa Sánchez), who having inherited the factory Dos Estaciones from previous generations, managed to modernize it and thrive economically. But all of a sudden, her lifetime work collapses in front of her eyes. It’s not just the fierce competition and the pesticide-resistant plague that threatens the agave fields; it’s also the unannounced weather-related challenges that sometimes require expensive remedial measures. 

Adopting a man-like posture and exhibiting a nearly military look, Sanchez is impeccable as this once successful entrepreneur who gained the respect of the villagers. In the last attempt to save her factory, Maria hires Rafaela (Rafaela Fuentes), an experienced and versatile worker to whom she becomes physically attracted. The focus then briefly shifts to Tatis (Tatín Vera), a local transgender hairdresser whose salon is about to be expanded. 

Dos Estaciones is not flashy nor imposing, but its purpose and meaning rings loud, providing one of those experiences where honesty and heaviness can’t be dissociated. Despite contemplative on occasion, it carries this subtly underlying tension that bites consistently. Because Gonzalez isn't afraid to convey the deep concerns, insecurities and strengths of these women, you immediately know the film is going to give you something. Cinematographer Gerardo Guerra assists him by extracting natural lyricism from the visual compositions.

You Resemble Me (2022)

Direction: Dina Amer
Country: France 

The inaugural shot of You Resemble Me, the unfluctuating feature debut by Egyptian-American writer-director Dina Amer (a former journalist), makes us disquieted about the film’s young character, Hasna (Lorenza Grimaudo). She is based on the real Hasna Ait Boulahcen, labelled Europe's first female suicide bomber by the media in 2015 after getting involved in the Bataclan theater attacks in Paris. The film is fictional, though; a powerful imagination of the events that credits acclaimed filmmakers Spike Lee and Spike Jonze as executive producers. 

Hasna’s childhood has been tough enough as she's treated with a cruelty that’s hard to bear by her unbalanced mother, Amina (Sana Sri). She suffers a deeper blow after being kicked out from home and get separated from her younger sister Mariam (Illona Grimaudo), with whom she’s very attached to. As an adult (Mouna Soualem), while going from disappointment to disappointment with this sense of not belonging, she feels that nothing's left for her but a promise of paradise offered by the Syrian Jihad. 

The director’s depth of feeling in reconstructing Hasna’s terrible teenage years, guilt, and dilemmas deserves praise as well as her clear view and poignant depiction of the subject. Filmed and edited with dynamism, You Resemble Me catches our attention by touching on a number of central conflicts, both internal and external, that has frightening accents of truth.

Argentina 1985 (2022)

Direction: Santiago Mitre
Country: Argentina 

Courtroom drama films about real trials frequently follow typical patterns, and Argentina, 1985 falls into that category without adding great innovations. Working from a script he co-wrote with Mariano Llinás (La Flor, 2018), director Santiago Mitre (Paulina, 2015; The Summit, 2017) adopts that familiar structure but depicts this special chapter in the history of Argentina with a clear focus. However, even carrying considerable information about the harrowing military dictatorship - effective from 1976 to 1983 - and the subsequent Trial of the Juntas in 1985, one can tell it was made with crowd entertainment in mind.

Propelled by Ricardo Darin’s strong performance as the prosecutor Julio Strassera, the national hero who sent the worst fascist commanders to jail for crimes against humanity, the film is carried by an urgent necessity of justice and its rousing pro-democracy message. Strassera used the help of a group of inexperienced yet bold lawyers led by Luis Moreno Ocampo (Peter Lanzani), his right-hand assistant.

Considering the heaviness of the topic, Mitre’s approach is light and doesn’t go beyond most Hollywood-style films. The way the film was conventionally shot curtailed the emotional responses it needed to evoke, and we particularly regret the oversimplification of some aspects in the hard mission of these characters. It’s OK to stop by here, but not so much for what it presents visually or narratively. In summary: an unambitious legal drama that doesn't make the message any less true.

Hinterland (2022)

Direction: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Country: Austria 

Hinterland, a post-war detective thriller set in the early ‘20s, resembles the old classics, but not in the visual department. It was shot with almost surreal images, immersing the viewer into a viscerally distorted world that borrows from the German expressionism’s tonal palette. The film, anchored by a solid performance by Murathan Muslu and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky (The Counterfeiters, 2007), turns into a whodunnit mystery at some point. Although its visual eccentricity might feel dystopically weird for some viewers, this is the kind of story that could be found in the filmographies of Orson Welles and Andrzej Wajda. Yet, I’m pretty convinced the result would be very different, for better.

The story traces the path of Lieutenant Peter Berg (Muslu), a former criminologist made a POW, who returns to Vienna seven years after fighting for the emperor and fatherland against the Russian troops. Berg left his family and his job in the police to go to the battlefield, and everyone blames him for that, including his former colleague Victor Renner (Marc Limpach) and Dr. Theresa Körner (Liv Lisa Fries), a forensic pathologist who will help him solve a spree of brutal murders related to his military unit. 

This is a gut-wrenching look at the depressing and vicious ramifications of war. The suspense increases gradually and new discoveries are unveiled at every step of the investigation, culminating with a decent twist.

To Leslie (2022)

Direction: Michael Morris
Country: USA 

To Leslie, the in-your-face first feature film by director Michael Morris, is based on true events, playing as a country ballad with a taste of whiskey and the venom of judgmental Christians. But it’s also tender and human in many ways.

Suffused with equal parts heaviness and compassion, this surprisingly unsparing drama explores the torments of the title character, an alcoholic single mother from Texas who ends up on the streets six years after winning the lottery. 

The film boasts substantial pleasures, largely on account of British actress Andrea Riseborough (Birdman, 2014; Oblivion, 2013), who, with authenticity, delivers a superlative, hard-to-forget performance. She’s strongly backed by actor/comedian Marc Maron as the kindhearted employer that gives her a chance to live again and regain a long lost self-confidence.

With demonstrative humanity, this is not the kind of trip you'll return to multiple times, but one that you look back on fondly.

The Cathedral (2022)

Direction: Ricky D’Ambrose
Country: USA 

In Ricky D’Ambrose’s third feature, The Cathedral, the life of Jesse Damrosch (Robert Levey II and William Bednar-Carter) and his parents - Richard (Brian d'Arcy James) and Lydia (Monica Barbaro) - expand to other members of the family via a sequential thread of fragmental portraits that compose a bigger picture. The singular, well interpreted story of the family spans two decades, and is presented with a retro look and consonant decor. 

Processed with botches of melancholy (there’s this sense of solitude, fear and bashfulness that shrouds the central character), the film is not exactly disarming but bestowed with just enough charm and pathos to make us interested. Hostilities, emotional pugnacity, unforgiveness, and cruelty evoke a wide spectrum of possible family issues that are immediately relatable. 

D’Ambrose’s style is less detailed and conversational than Richard Linklater's but more expeditious. The Cathedral is by no means incompetent; it's just almost pathologically elementary, floating with nostalgia and a few painful moments that could go even further in its narrative purpose. David Lowery (A Ghost Story, 2017; The Green Knight, 2021) is credited as executive producer.

Brighton 4th (2022)

Direction: Levan Koguashvili
Country: Georgia

As a tightly controlled, low-boil send-up from Georgia, Brighton 4th partly succeeds, being an often amusing, sometimes off-kilter and ultimately elegiac immigrant song written and directed by Levan Koguashvili from a screenplay by Boris Frumin.

The story is about a good-natured man and former wrestling champion, Kakhi (Levan Tedaishvili), who travels from Tbilisi to Brooklyn to fix a debt owed by his son, Soso (Giorgi Tabidze), who is not sleeping nor studying as he was supposed to. Staying in a hostel ran by his sister-in-law (Tsutsa Kapanadze), Kakhi ends up negotiating with the local Georgian mafia in a way that is as peculiar as unconvincing. He also helps with a case of injustice related to fellow countrywomen who are not being paid. 

Both the mise-en-scene and socio-economic realities depicted here are strong and compelling, but the film takes a bit too much time with alcohol-filled gatherings and Georgian chants. With that said, it still demonstrates the daily life and struggle of these people without resorting to misery or sentimentalism. Koguashvili prefers an intermittent caustic humor, connecting us with his sensitive character as he finds enough cultural specificity to keep the story afloat. 

It’s a shame that, despite a flawless characterization, the storytelling sometimes gets stranded in dispensable details and unlikely resolutions.

The Box (2022)

Direction: Lorenzo Vigas
Country: Venezuela / Mexico / USA

In Lorenzo Vigas’ The Box, a Mexican teenager (Hatzin Navarrete) sets out to collect his deceased father belongings and ends up taking part in the underworld machine of immigration and exploitation. At first, he’s left twisting in the wind in a strange land, with the doubt if his father really died. Soon, he learns the business with the man (Hernán Mendoza) he suspects changed his identity and abandoned him and his family without looking back. 

The film, as piercing as an internal scream of despair, warrants a response to the darkest realities of Mexico, tackling a sensitive theme through a brainy story punctuated with some surprises. The biggest amusement of this unsentimental tale of hope turned disenchantment is to see how this clever kid observes his surroundings and deals with each different situation.

This same subject was addressed with less issues in films such as Identifying Features and Prayers for the Stolen. Yet, even discreet and imbued with some strangeness, The Box still digs its own path within this particular drama subgenre. It caused me to ponder on the nature of each human being by making simple emotions complex, and complex questions impossible to answer.

Utama (2022)

Direction: Alejandro Loayza Grisi
Country: Bolivia / Uruguay / France

Utama, the first feature by Alejandro Loayza Grisi, takes us to the arid Bolivian highlands where an old couple of Quechua peasants - Virginio and Sisa (played by the affectionate real-life husband and wife, José Calcina and Luisa Quispe, who are non-professional actors) - receives their city-born grandson, Clever (Santos Choque), in their modest house. Virginio is ill and needs urgent medical care. However, despite his grandson’s pleas, he refuses to abandon his land and move to La Paz. 

This enchanting arthouse viewing experience, mesmerizingly photographed by its writer-director, is just impressive in its narrative breadth, inviting us to meditate on death, roots, forced migration, environmental threats, and our own deserts. It also focuses on generational clash, which much contributes to the dramatic tension of the film. 

Mobilizing all the power of cinema to service his narrative purpose, Grisi creates a simple film that fascinates by its romance, pastoral poetry, and the beauty of its hypnotic staging. This is accompanied by indigenous percussive music and acapella chants that can intensify the tension or appease the soul. Symbology is also present in the form of the sad crying of the llamas and the ominous flight of the condor. 

This admirable aesthetic sense coupled with the cultural and climate change subjects makes Utama one of those films that, holding steadfast to its realism, sticks with you till the very end. After the final credits roll, we slowly recover from the gentle power, latent delicacy, and undiminished poignancy of this story with the thought that life must go on.

Another World (2022)

Direction: Stephane Brizé
Country: France

Adopting a realism redolent of Ken Loach, French director Stephane Brizé keeps aiming at social injustices, questioning the ferocity and blind cruelty of modern corporations. With the contribution of dedicated actor Vincent Lindon, he concludes a sort of ‘work trilogy’, which began in 2015 with The Measure of a Man and proceeded with At War in 2018. Another World marks the fifth collaboration between the director and the actor.

Philippe Lemesle (Lindon) and his wife Anne (Sandrine Kiberlain) are about to divorce. They have two children: Juliette, who lives abroad, and Lucas (Anthony Bajon), who is going through serious emotional and mental problems. Philippe has been working his ass off as a corporate executive and barely has time for the family. His reputation is high, but the pressure becomes unbearable when he’s given a layoff plan demanding the sacrifice of 58 loyal employees. He can no longer find coherence in the system he’s been committed to for years. 

Brizé and his co-screenwriter Olivier Gorce excel in pointing out this business language where the meaning of the word "courage" is tendentiously twisted. One still finds shades of a certain melodramatic complacency, especially regarding the protagonist’s personal life, but the film leaves such a strong impression that we easily forget that aspect. 

Lindon is just perfect; we see him and we believe it. His performance is well supplemented by TV and radio journalist Marie Drucker as a cold and intransigent boss. A successful first theatrical appearance for her. Another World is another product of Brizé’s mature social observation.

Blonde (2022)

Direction: Andrew Dominik
Country: USA 

Adapted from Joyce Carol Oates' bestseller, Blonde turns the life of Marilyn Monroe into an endlessly disgusting tableau that Ana de Armas couldn’t save despite her charisma. 

In this fictional journey of real characters, Marilyn loses her mentally disturbed mother (Julianne Nicholson), spends the rest of her life searching for her unknown father, pays a high price to become a Hollywood celebrity, delves into a threesome relationship with Cass (Xavier Samuel) and Eddy (Evan Williams) - the sons of Charlie Chaplin and Edward G. Robinson, respectively - and has no luck in her marriages to baseball star Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale) and playwright/screenwriter Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody). She’s also mercilessly humiliated by president Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson).

Stylized both in color and black-and-white and probing mutable aspect ratios (for no apparent reason), the film is just pose with no essence found. It’s protracted and overdramatized with repetitive despondent tones that make it barely bearable.

The simulated biopic starts strong as a tense family drama, segueing into a dragging middle section before ending up in an uninspired delirium of damaging pregnancies and ‘daddy’ relationships marked by toxic masculinity. The direction of Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, 2007) has some flashes of inspiration but is not to die for, while the script portrays the star almost as a dumb, without penetrating the woman's heart.

Saloum (2022)

Direction: Jean Luc Herbulot
Country: Senegal

Congolese director Jean Luc Herbulot teams up with producer Pamela Diop in the screenplay of Saloum, a biting crime thriller populated by African folklore and supernatural elements. The oppressive environment naturally lends an air of danger to a story that follows three mercenaries - Chaka (Yann Gael), Rafa (Roger Sallah) and Minuit (Mentor Ba) - who are forced to land their plane on the mystic land of Saloum in Senegal. They transport an important Mexican trafficker on the run from Guinea-Bissau and a gold bounty. 

Posing as gold miners while looking for fuel and resin, this gang - the Bangui Hyenas - is in this region for a particular reason. A few threatening human presences on the site are considered minor when compared to the inhuman forces they will have to battle.

While Saloum may be a little frustrating in its upshot, you’ll be sufficiently intrigued to keep watching. The film paints an unusual, funny, and sometimes violent portrait of a certain contemporary Africa, providing a rough sketch of past traumas and a quest for revenge with a nod to the Western genre. There’s no particularly sympathetic character for us to root for, and yet the scenes are well acted, technically decent, and infused with a well-connected soundtrack. 

A mixture of solemnity and comedy colors the whole film, and there’s a neat and meticulous attempt at illustration despite the occasional wild camera movements. The bet was risky, but it paid off since the film fulfilled its primary mission: to agitate and entertain.

A Love Song (2022)

Direction: Max Walker-Silverman
Country: USA

Max Walker-Silverman’s pensive indie drama, A Love Song, didn’t have the impact I was expected. There’s more synthetic quilt than real fabric and thread weaving this story of two lonely widowed friends - Faye (Dale Dickey) and Lito (Wes Studi) - who have become estranged over the years, and now try to find solace in each other. 

Faye has been living in a trailer since she lost her partner seven years ago. She’s stationed in a campsite by a lake in the Colorado mountains for quite some time. Living day by day from coffee and seafood, she patiently awaits Lito, her former love, who finally arrives to spend one night.

It gets pretty hard to penetrate beyond the superficialities of their past relationship and the awkwardness of being face to face again after decades. The way the film is presented doesn’t allow us to excavate deeply into these characters’ souls. 

The film carries a mechanical melancholy that becomes trivial after a while. By looking deeper into the author's approach, it’s not impossible to find a certain artlessness in his work. Despite the beauty of the scenic, bucolic landscape where it all takes place, the story offers few surprises, and we're left with a stunted perspective of hope and accomplishment that is unfulfilling. Too bad that the staging never deviates from the marked path, and the film doesn’t pass the barrier of conventionality.

The Quiet Girl (2022)

Direction: Colm Bairéad
Country: Ireland 

The Quiet Girl, a warmhearted Irish drama of superior quality, chews over love and care, enhancing their positive effects on the development of a young girl. The film is a mark of extraordinary promise from Colm Bairéad, a debutant filmmaker whose future works we want to keep an eye on. 

Employing a powerful simplicity in the process, Bairéad tells the story of Cáit (Catherine Clinch), a restrained and sensitive 9-year-old girl who tries to hide from everybody. Both her mood and behavior change completely during the summer of 1981, when she leaves her impoverished, dysfunctional family to spend a couple of months on a farm with estranged relatives (Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennett).  

Generating empathy and honesty at every second, The Quiet Girl is a memorable film, not only for the way it’s mounted, but for going against the trendy themes of pessimism, hatred, dystopia, and chaos that consume most of the movies made today. The frames are captured with a rare sensitivity that makes you read and feel the protagonists’ emotions. For this particularity, much contributed the impeccable performances from all members of the cast, a surefooted direction, and an outstanding cinematography.

As subtle and delicate as an affectionate embrace, this is a beautiful film, whose story provides a heartbreaking insight into the different roles people may have in one’s life. The medium is love, and you always feel when it’s present or not. The exceptionally controlled storytelling avoids excessive pathos, but don’t feel surprised if the gracious, bittersweet finale moves you to tears.

Unidentified (2022)

Direction: Bogdan George Apetri
Country: Romania 

Unidentified is the first installment in a crime trilogy envisioned by Bogdan George Apetri, who keeps one foot in the ridiculousness of the Romanian police routines and the other in an impossible-to-solve crime mystery that puts us off-balance. Even slipping in critical observations about the precariousness, human disconnectedness, sexism, and prejudice in his country, the director wasn’t as efficient in the orchestration of this coal-dark satire as in Miracle, the film that followed up. Both films were shot simultaneously and share a couple of characters.

Florin is the man that catches our attention here; an indebted, sleepless and highly obsessed police inspector determined to solve a strange case in which two mothers were burned alive. But if his colleagues sin for indifference, then he takes his efforts too far. This is a challenging role for actor Bogdan Farcas in a work whose staging sinks into mannerism, leaving only room for the paranoid behavior of a policeman who thinks he is above the law. 

Unidentified is exactly like its protagonist: too serious to make us laugh, and too laughable to be taken seriously. A strong sense of incredulity grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go. The result, an attempted mixture of adrenaline, madness and despair, never managed to keep me on the edge of my seat. 
Without sparing us any details related to this cop’s machinations, Apetri seems fascinated by him. We, less.

Speak No Evil (2022)

Direction: Christian Tafdrup
Country: Denmark

Speak No Evil is a well-filmed, highly unsettling Danish thriller whose story exudes gripping familiarity before taking us to harrowing conclusions. Adopting a hyper-realistic style, director Christian Tafdrup (Parents, 2016; A Horrible Woman, 2017) conjures up a mad world of predators and prey with dramatic power and a crescendo of emotions. His art consists in exacerbating borders to better abolish them, in a formally controlled exercise in suspense.

Co-written by Christian and his brother Mads, the story follows a Danish couple - the easygoing Bjorn (Morten Burian) and the astute Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch) - on holidays in Tuscany. There, they meet an opaque Dutch couple - Patrick (Fedja van Huêt ) and Karin (Karina Smulders) - who, months later, invite them to a weekend getaway in their isolated house situated in the Netherlands’ countryside. The circumstances of their staying might have been different, but this family seems to be inevitably drawn into a nightmarish tragedy. 

While the story is pretty strong, there are a couple of scenes that felt a bit awkward, especially those involving Bjorn’s vulnerable moments in the company of Patrick. His weakness and naivety were almost unbearable to me. However, and eschewing any type of stereotype about what pure parental ferocity should be, I got the impression that this couple could have offered more resistance by any possible means. This is a pretty sick game we have here. 

All four adult actors and the two kids do a great job, but a very special mention goes to Ms. Koch, who was fantastic at every single instance, and van Huêt, for his cunning manifestation of cordiality and pugnacity. Disseminating helplessness and dread in the last minutes, at the sound of an ethereal “Requiem” composed by Sune Kolster, this dismal film will teach you to never trust strangers.

Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

Direction: George Miller
Country: USA 

From the creator of Mad Max, the writer-director George Miller, Three Thousand Years of Longing showcases a reserved Tilda Swinton as Alithea, a respected professor in a comfortable white robe, and Idris Elba as a wish-granting, size-shifting Djinn inadvertently released from the bottle that was holding him prisoner for so long. 

The film, an uninspired adaptation of the short story The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye by A.S. Byatt, is marred by an overflow of images with arguable special effects and also discussions that drag on with convoluted meaning. Overall, it lacks emotion, and only the cinematography by John Seale (he worked with Miller on Mad Max: Fury Road) is something one should take into consideration.

In Istanbul, in the sequence of Alithea’s difficulty in making three wishes for herself, the Djinn feels compelled to tell his restless 3000-year story marked by the presences of the biblical figure Queen of Sheba (Aamito Lagum), the knowledge-seeker Zefir (Burcu Gölgedar), and the irascible Sultan Suleiman (Lachy Hulme). With a tone that teeters between delicate and affected, this fantasy drama has no claws to be of more than passing interest. Basically, it fails to achieve what it tries to claim: the power of a deeply engaging narrative.

House of Darkness (2022)

Direction: Neil LaBute
Country: USA

Neil LaBute, the mind behind In the Company of Men (1997) and Nurse Betty (2000), wrote and directed House of Darkness, an insipidly chatty comedy horror film whose effect is more mildly irritating than genuinely disconcerting. 

In the manner of a joke without a punchline, the story takes place in an old, dark and secluded house full of memories. This house belongs to Mina (Kate Bosworth), a mysterious country woman, who, after incidentally coming across Hap (Justin Long) in a bar, invites him in. Tipsy, nosy and elusive, this middle-class city man keeps hearing noises and seeing things… are they alone in this little castle? 

Among naps, kisses and eerie dreams, we start to feel like we're drowning in the atmosphere, but the film just goes around in circles, adding more and more dragging conversation that has nowhere to go. Taking a pathetic direction, the story gives away everything too soon. The actors are better than the predictable parts they play, and we wish that moments like the five-minute gory fiesta that concludes the film had been spread across the film.

Unfortunately, LaBute sacrificed the narrative and characters in the name of a few formal coups, making House of Darkness a painfully unnecessary experience.

God's Country (2022)

Direction: Julian Higgins
Country: USA

Adapted from James Lee Burke's short story Winter Light, God’s Country is a slow burning, above-average drama thriller that, being sharp in intention, probes into the wounded heart of a disconsolate woman. Director and co-writer Julian Higgins crafts a compelling framework to address discrimination and sexism with a mix of deep poignancy, retaliatory ferocity, and indelible damage.

Told over the course of seven days, the story is centered on Sandra (Thandiwe Newton), a grieving college teacher who lives at the edge of the forest in Western Montana. When her land is repeatedly trespassed by two local hunters, the reachable Nathan (Joris Jarsky) and the obnoxious Samuel (Jefferson White), she confronts them. She's determined to not allow them get their way, but the lack of support from the law and the locals makes her dive into a grey universe of anger and hurt. Can she still show complacency towards people with no respect? 

God’s Country plays a minimalist pitch and puts all the emphasis on tone to achieve a sort of hypnotic enchantment. The message and feelings are there, and the picture plays more like a poignant indie drama rather than a rural western-style epic. With a large part of the success coming from Newton’s exemplary performance, there is so much that individuals can learn from this film.