More pandering than San Diego zoo

Rating: 3/10 (26 January 2019)

This movie epitomises the shallow treatment of rural America which Hollywood churns out time after time. And it's directed by a brit! Pay your $12, sit still and shut up whilst one of your former imperial overlords explains to you, very slowly, why you stink.
Billy Bob Thornton has written about this type of movie (not this exact one as far as I know) and he's right. It does nothing to advance mutual understanding or art, which is surprising because this is from the maker if the superb In Bruges.
I thought this would be a good film. It isn't. It's the opposite of Sling Blade. That film dealt with broadly similar topics and situations but was ten times more powerful because it had truth and love running all the way through it.
This film is totally hollow and 2 years from now nobody will remember it.