Directed by: Taylor Sheridan
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Graham Greene, Jon Bernthal, Martin Sensmeier, Julia Jones, Gil Birmingham
Writer-director Taylor Sheridan, whose two previous screenplays were Sicario (2015) and Hell or High Water (2016), sets his stories in scenic, desolate areas of America. The people in his stories suffer from the effects of that desolation and never in a more powerful way than in Wind River, which transcends its origins as a murder investigation to focus on the soul-crushing effects of living so far from others. In Wind River, the story mostly takes place on a Wyoming Indian reservation which has a tribal police force of six patrolling an area as large as Rhode Island. It is hard to imagine snow not covering the ground. Homes are miles from each other and are in shambles. Their occupants have either given up on their hopes and dreams or are well on their way to doing so.
A teenage girl's body is discovered miles from the nearest home, which stirs up old hurts and then piles new ones on top of them. He name is Natalie. She was raped, had cuts on her forehead, and was barefoot in the snow and subzero temperatures. The cold killed her to be sure, but why was she running barefoot into the woods with no person around to help in sight? Fish and Wildlife tracker Cory Lambert (Renner) and inexperienced, but determined FBI agent Jane Banner (Olsen) want to find out. Cory knows the area so well "like it's his job", as he puts it, but when he discusses the landscape he can't help but be in awe of its savage beauty. He loves the area and its people, while fearing its relentless, unpitying effect on those in it and around it.
Cory is divorced from his Native American wife (Jones) and has one son. He had a daughter who died tragically three years earlier, so when he advises Martin (Birmingham), the father of the dead girl, on how to handle his grief, we know he is coming from a place of knowledge. As a father of a recently deceased child myself, these scenes rung so true and heartfelt. Cory goes about his daily business and his job, but the grief will always be just below the surface. His own grief is part of the reason he needs to find out what happened to the girl, who at one time was friends with his own daughter.
Cory and Jane don't receive much help. The tribal police chief Ben (the invaluable Graham Greene) is short-handed, but he doggedly carries on his duty without excuses. His ragged, world-weary demeanor is a source of humor. Jane sees the world as it should be, but Ben's experience knows the world as it is, especially in the Wind River reservation. Jane learns quickly what she is up against; a world Cory and Ben know too well.
Sheridan's imagery of the unforgiving, yet gorgeous landscape belies the secrets it keeps. Clues such as blood trails can be buried in snow squalls in minutes and the residents have to get around by snowmobile. The wildlife is mysterious, beautiful, and terrifying, especially vultures and mountain lions which populate the woods and go about their business as nature intended. Such rough terrain causes the people to act against their better natures out of desperation, loneliness, and anger. Drugs run rampant in the area because it provides a respite against the sad lives these people lead.
Wind River sounds very much like a downer, but it is well-paced and uses the mood of the Wind River residents as subtext. As Cory and Jane move closer to the outcome, we are drawn in by the conventions of murder mystery without forgetting the ugliness which caused the death in the first place. Renner is as strong here as he ever was, driven by his own demons to solve the crime, while occasionally letting down his guard for others to see inside. He never needs to reach for effect. Olsen is also strong as an outsider to this world who learns to appreciate her own life a little bit more after witnessing the suffering she encounters in Wind River.
If I had any complaint about the structure of the movie, it is an ill-timed Mexican standoff which occurs before we learn the full story of Natalie's senseless death. It makes the reveal anti-climactic. And there is one scene in which Renner maybe goes a bit too action hero on us when dealing with a suspect.
An image which may or may not have been intentional is perhaps the most haunting in the movie. We see Cory and Martin sitting in Martin's backyard. They are talking, but in some cases the unspoken words are more powerful than the spoken ones. We see the highway in the distance with cars rushing past in both directions. The people in those cars can simply blow by Wind River without a thought. The people who reside in Wind River could use the highway to take them away and towards a better life. An escape is so close, yet so very far away. It may as well be on the moon.
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