By Angel
Movie description: “A veteran tracker with the Fish and Wildlife Service helps to investigate the murder of a young Native American woman.”
Story
A perfect example of a neo-western that deals with grief and redemption. I’m going to get straight to the point and say that this was a masterful movie. I was blown away at how intense and thrilling this story was from beginning to end. It felt like I was holding in one long breath and finally able to release it once the credits had rolled. I wish you could hear my voice to really understand how much I freaking loved Wind River. The characters were amazing and completely three dimensional. The dialogue was so rich, that you could watch this movie with your eyes closed and still have a life altering experience.
I loved the dynamic between the hunter and the FBI agent hunting down whatever it was that killed the Native American girl. The reveal was extremely compelling which just proved to me how emotionally immersed I was with the plot. I did not expect the dramatic turn it took, so crazy. The ending is immensely rewarding as I couldn’t stop myself from screaming “hell yea!!!” Easily one of the best movies of 2017 and one of my favorite thrillers ever made. “This isn’t the land of waiting for back up. This is the land of you’re on your own.” HELL YEA!!!!
Cinematography
To me, great cinematography is when the visuals are contributing to the storytelling. A film should SHOW us what’s going on rather than tell us. When it comes to analyzing cinematography, simply, I ask myself, “Was this film nice to look at?” Then I can choose to get in depth and look for whether colors were symbolic, placement of characters in the frame, composition, lighting, shadows, and point of view.
Was Wind River a nice film to look at….ABSOLUTELY!!! One of my favorite looking movies of the year. I loved the landscape shots of the Indian Reservation, it was beautiful and made me feel like I was there. The cinematographer did an outstanding job at creating this sense of danger with the territory. Truly remarkable work of cinematography as the images are burned into my head, so chilling!
Performances
Jeremy Renner kills the role! At first, it sounded like his accent was changing from the Wyoming accent to his American accent, but it sounded perfect before the end of the first act. I really loved his character and his arc of redemption. Renner had to embody the role with pain and grit, it was completely authentic and so damn awesome.
Elizabeth Olsen delivered my favorite performance from her career. I love the way Taylor Sheridan writes female characters, they are strong characters! She had to convince me that she’s a character who would fight for her life with conviction, intelligence, and bravery. She wants to do the right thing and whenever her character needed to be vulnerable her performance really shined.
Gil Birmingham was damn good. He had to portray a character who felt betrayed by the very land that he was forced to stay on while also carrying internal torment, similar to the feeling of Renner’s character. Without his performance, the movie would not work. Brilliant supporting character!
Everyone in this movie was exceptional and I cannot believe this is Taylor Sheridan’s directorial debut. He was able to get incredible performances from all his actors and that is what distinguishes the good directors and the great ones. The oscar is coming soon.
Music
Hauntingly gorgeous is how I would describe the soundtrack. The vocals are hypnotizing and feel like the bitter cold. It’s absolutely fantastic.
Message
The lessons I got from Wind River: Women are warriors, you are robbing your mind from reaching joyful memories if you steer away from pain, Native Americans deserve more respect, you can either survive or surrender, irresponsibility can end in tragedy, wolves don’t kill unlucky deer, redemption allows you to right a wrong, & don’t ever blink, not even for a second when it comes to protecting your children.
Overall
Everyone needs to see this phenomenal film. I’m still in awe of it. I’m going to own this movie as soon as possible, thinking of buying it right now actually after I’m done writing this. The story hooked my attention the entire time until it was over, cinematography was breathtaking, music was riveting, performances were sensational, and the themes were life changing. I’m going to see this again right away just holy crap it was freaking sick. My rating for Wind River is 10/10!
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