God’s Country – first-look review | Little White Lies

Festivals

God’s Coun­try – first-look review

26 Jan 2022

Words by Caitlin Quinlan

A woman in a black jacket standing in a dimly lit hallway, with a serious expression on her face.
A woman in a black jacket standing in a dimly lit hallway, with a serious expression on her face.
Thandi­we New­ton plays a col­lege pro­fes­sor who faces off against a group of hunters in Julian Hig­gins’ pre­cise and pre­scient debut.

In Julian Hig­gins’ fea­ture direc­to­r­i­al debut we enter God’s Coun­try, all snowy hill­tops, arid plains and deep-root­ed small town spite in the Amer­i­can West. It’s an impres­sive­ly-han­dled slow burn­er, adapt­ed from a James Lee Burke short sto­ry by Hig­gins and Shaye Ogbon­na, and con­struct­ed with a pre­ci­sion and con­trol that keeps the nar­ra­tive taut until the cen­tral dan­ger falls away into chaos.

Hid­ing away in her mod­est yet strik­ing home over­look­ing a canyon is San­dra Guidry (Thandi­we New­ton), a pro­fes­sor at a near­by col­lege griev­ing the death of her moth­er. The house’s eccle­si­as­tic style, with its high point­ed roof and wide win­dows, is an appro­pri­ate set­ting for the film’s bib­li­cal struc­ture; over sev­en for­ma­tive days, San­dra will cre­ate a new world for her­self in her own vision.

As snow set­tles over the rur­al town, it muf­fles the land­scape — sounds are mut­ed and colours are lim­it­ed to mud­dy greys and browns. Grief is hav­ing the same effect on San­dra, smoth­er­ing her day to day life and strip­ping it of all vibran­cy. She wan­ders, ghost-like, from her class­room to her home where she is try­ing to begin pack­ing away her mother’s belong­ings. An unnerv­ing intru­sion jolts her from this state, but there is lit­tle improve­ment; her mourn­ing sim­ply com­bines with the exhaus­tion of her life as a Black woman in a racist envi­ron­ment and to immense effect. Two hunters park their red pick-up truck on her prop­er­ty and Sandra’s polite note to tell them to stop is tossed in the snow next to a blood­ied bird car­cass. From here, the film’s thriller-esque dra­ma esca­lates with a steady pace and bold sto­ry­telling direc­tion as San­dra retal­i­ates to every fur­ther act of bru­tal­i­ty enact­ed by these men. Assert­ing her pow­er is a neces­si­ty and a gam­ble against those with the strength and priv­i­lege to fight harder.

New­ton is mag­net­ic on screen, bal­anc­ing stead­fast­ness with fragili­ty. Why are you like this?” San­dra asks the younger hunter ear­ly on in the film plead­ing­ly, worth­less­ly. The sin­cere threat he pos­es through his eyes alone is enough to make her back away in the first exam­ple of the film’s deft por­tray­al of the ways in which women are so often forced to capit­u­late to men for their own safe­ty. San­dra, as seem­ing­ly the only per­son of colour, let alone woman of colour, for miles, is well-attuned to the vio­lent habits of def­er­ence of those around her too. Her white female col­league bows her head as she votes yes’ to an all-white short­list for a job at the col­lege, despite the promise that they would work hard­er at inclu­siv­i­ty, while her boss and neigh­bour Arthur (Kai Lennox) bud­dies up with the macho hunters in a dis­play of mas­cu­line submission.

God’s Coun­try keeps much of its socio-polit­i­cal com­men­tary and Sandra’s trau­ma under­stat­ed but it flows through the nar­ra­tive and the set­ting as a volatile under­cur­rent seep­ing into every cor­ner. This is a spoiled land, pre­sent­ed con­fi­dent­ly and with a con­tem­po­rary focus that offers a nuanced take on white and male supremacy.

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