Nation­al Anthem review – main­tains a bold sense of hopefulness

In recent years, the clas­sic west­ern has under­gone a peri­od of rein­ven­tion. No longer is it the sil­hou­ette of macho mas­culin­i­ty framed against the Amer­i­can Frontier’s wide open plains; instead, updat­ed cow­boy motifs are breath­ing new life into por­traits of Amer­i­cana. With its queer, trans and non-bina­ry char­ac­ters, Nation­al Anthem fol­lows in the hoof prints of The Rid­er, The Pow­er of the Dog and Jock­ey as a neo-west­ern widen­ing the breadth of the mod­ern Amer­i­can Dream on screen.

This ten­der com­ing-of-age dra­ma marks acclaimed pho­tog­ra­ph­er Luke Gilford’s fea­ture debut, a con­tin­u­a­tion of his mono­graph Nation­al Anthem: America’s Queer Rodeo. Char­lie Plum­mer plays Dylan, an intro­vert­ed 21-year-old con­struc­tion work­er, some­what repris­ing his role from Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete, who cycles through jobs in rur­al New Mex­i­co to sup­port his alco­holic moth­er (Robyn Live­ly) and lit­tle broth­er Cas­sidy (Joey DeLeon). Dylan’s life changes when he takes work at the House of Splen­dor ranch, home to a close-knit com­mu­ni­ty of queer ranch­ers and rodeo performers.

Dylan is put to work mov­ing hay bales and scrub­bing down the hors­es but his duties are aban­doned when he meets the angel­ic Sky (Eve Lind­ley) who appears like a vision in a flow­ing mint dress. Sky may be with ranch leader Pepe (Rene Rosa­do), but that doesn’t stop Dylan’s infat­u­a­tion from heat­ing up under the mid­day sun. Plum­mer deft­ly han­dles the trans­for­ma­tion of this lone cowboy’s awk­ward mas­culin­i­ty blos­som­ing into sen­si­tiv­i­ty as he finds belong­ing. As Dylan gets to grips with him­self, the film grad­u­al­ly intro­duces ten­sion; Pepe isn’t pleased about his close­ness with Sky, and Dylan’s moth­er is hor­ri­fied when Cas­sidy arrives home in a dress. Trau­ma around iden­ti­ty, how­ev­er, is most­ly kept off the table.

Gil­ford, with his pho­tog­ra­phy back­ground, and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Katelin Ariz­men­di bol­ster this por­trait of shift­ing man­hood with poet­i­cal visu­als that merge from joy drenched by the tac­tile warmth of gold­en hour to a three­some illu­mi­nat­ed by the blue haze of moon­light. Nation­al Anthem hits its stride when it’s not brava­do but moments of rev­o­lu­tion that take cen­tre frame. When Dylan sees him­self with blue eye­shad­ow or gets dressed in drag to lip sync at karaōke, the world around him melts away. This play­ful sub­ver­sion of west­ern iconog­ra­phy, a stand-off between who he is and who he could be, ele­vates Gilford’s visu­al tus­sle with masculinity.

Dylan’s intre­pid romance with Sky wields much of Nation­al Anthem’s allure but the incan­des­cent friend­ship with non-bina­ry ranch­er Car­rie (the phe­nom­e­nal Mason Alexan­der Park) proves par­tic­u­lar­ly sacred. One stormy evening, wrapped in blan­kets under lantern glow, Car­rie tells Dylan: ​“You belong here. You think it’s sup­posed to be big­ger and bet­ter than it is but it’s not. It’s me telling you, right now, you belong.” This ten­der­ness against the rough­ness of the out­back under­scores Nation­al Anthem. Gilford’s tale of cho­sen fam­i­ly awash with bright blues and reds main­tains a bold sense of hope­ful­ness at a time when America’s LGBTQ+ pop­u­la­tion is brac­ing for the worst.