Sundance 2021: Jockey, Wild Indian, Superior

“Jockey,” the last film to screen as part of the festival’s US Dramatic Competition, affirms that boxers are on their way out, and horse riders are in when it comes to cinematic masculine poetry (also see: "Lean on Pete," "The Mustang," "The Rider," etc.) Directed by Clint Bentley, the story tells of a horse jockey in his twilight, an athlete built of deep training and experience looking to prove himself with one last race. The movie was recently picked up by Sony Pictures Classics (meaning you could have chance of seeing it sooner than later), and I'm curious as to how a non-Sundance crowd will take to it.

What matters most with a movie like this is the rider, and Clifton Collins Jr. is a great face to follow throughout. Including him in nearly every scene, the script gives us more of Collins than we’ve been able to see in previous roles, so there's an excitement off the bat in watching his familiar face go to such emotional depths, or in seeing him captivate extended shots that show him in action, during and after an exhausting ride. 

His character Jackson is wise about his life's passion, and has that confidence when he talks to Ruth (Molly Parker), a horse owner who has known him for a long time. But Jackson is confused about a great deal of things in his past, including his own legacy when a young wannabe played by Moises Arias shows up and claims to be his son. This revelation, handled commendably with little melodrama from the script by Bentley and Greg Kwedar, leads the story to numerous reflective scenes, with Collins’ performance always feeling lived-in, and natural. There is an ease to this work, and if “Jockey” reminds more people of his expansive talents, it’s a winner already. 

"Jockey" leads with austerity far more than story, and there's just not a whole lot going on outside of Collins' work. In turn, its overt style becomes both its defining feature and its weakness. Bentley and cinematographer Adolfo Veloso use a great deal of sun-kissed, magic hour shots, many of which are impossibly beautiful and painterly (including one on a river, as Jackson sees horses playing while the sun sets in the distance), but they create an almost one-note statement, especially as these compositions are overzealously repeated. It more emphasizes how much “Jockey” finds pretty ways to say nothing particularly new, aside from contextualizing age, legacy, and mortality in a weary horse jockey's last ride. Pair that with the score, the kind that sounds like an 88-piece orchestra tuning up and could be easily be used in an overly serious jeans commercial, and "Jockey" has a grandiosity that it can only dream about. Though Collins is excellent, "Jockey" is a requiem with a considerably smaller range in comparison. 

Premiering at the festival as part of the US Dramatic Competition, “Wild Indian” marks the directorial debut of Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.. It has the markings of a director still finding his full cinematic voice, often choosing screenwriting mechanics or indulgent atmosphere, but he has two robust performances in his leads, who make this a parallel character study with two strong faces. "Wild Indian" seeks to be poignant and audacious, and yet sometimes the script's clenched fist is more like a heavy hand.

“Wild Indian” is the story of two friends, Mokwa and Ted-O, who live on a reservation in Wisconsin in the 1980s. Mokwa lives in a violent home with an abusive father, a living situation that instills a quiet rage inside the boy. Mokwa ends up taking that mutated fear out on a classmate in a sudden, unspeakable act with a rifle. Mokwa’s friend Ted-O helps with the burial. The act messes them up in different ways, as evidenced by the film's jump to modern times—Mokwa is now living in California, is known as Michael Peterson (Michael Greyeyes), and works for some bland company (with Jesse Eisenberg as his excitable boss). But Michael is lying to himself, and has damned himself to isolation by not facing what he did and instead constructing a new identity. He has a loving wife (Kate Bosworth) and a new child on the way, but he is totally removed from a sincere relationship, rendering him a type of sociopath whose gaze is more unsettling as the movie goes on. 

There is much less dishonesty with adult Ted-O (Chaske Spencer), who is introduced when released from prison (not related to the crime, as a job interview later reveals). He has a face tattoo and the words "OJIBWE" tattooed on his neck, the name of a tribe he is not ashamed to be a part of. Ted-O has a deeper connection to family than Mokwa ever did, and he returns home to his sister and his nephew. And though he struggles to feel worthy of taking a place in the house, he exhibits a sense of rejuvenation. But the past weighs on him, and the second half of the film has him venturing to confront Mokwa. 

Corbine’s story has enough strong ideas, it’s more that its drawn out editing (the first act especially) and overheated dramatic beats easily reduce the full momentum it needs for poignancy. But at least he has Greyeyes and Spencer for the script's at times shocking rumination on swallowed rage, and moral crossroads that leave these two men visibly distraught, whether they can express such pain or not. Both of them give emotionally rich performances that can cut through the film’s more maudlin tendencies.