A Strangely Gentle But Powerful Movie Combining Sadness With A Sense Of Spirituality

Rating: 8/10 (9 September 2018)

"Wind River" has only a few fleeting moments of high drama or excitement (most of them packed into a handful of scenes perhaps three quarters of the way through the film.) Basically it's a slow-paced but well-paced movie that builds towards its ultimate resolution. And there's a sense of sadness hanging over the whole thing; a reflection on past trauma; maybe some hope of being able to move forward. It's the story of the rape and murder of a young woman on an Indian reservation in Wyoming. Her body is found by a Fish and Game officer (Cory, played by Jeremy Renner.) The tribal police, led by their chief (played by Graham Greene) get involved but they're undermanned and so a young FBI agent (Jane, played by Elizabeth Olsen) is sent to lead the investigation. She's in over her head. She doesn't know reservations or Wyoming or blizzards or any of the things she'll be dealing with. That's part of the sadness. She's all that the FBI could be bothered to send for this kind of case. But she does care. She and Cory team up to find the rapist/killer. Cory's dealing with his own past - the death of his own daughter and a broken marriage to her mother, a native woman.)
I thought the pacing of this was wonderful. It starts with a jolt that lasts only a minute or so and then settles down into a slow and deliberate build-up as the investigation continues. What actually happened to Natalie (the young woman who was killed) came as a surprise to me. The story leads in one direction, and then takes a sudden left turn, and then the revelation of the killer and his ultimate fate at the hands of Cory settles back into a slow and deliberate final few scenes.
There's almost a sense of spirituality about this movie, I thought. It was engrossing. The wind swept and snow covered landscapes of Wyoming added to that. For a movie about a rape and murder, it was a very quiet and reflective story. When you add on to the core of the story the reflections that are contained about the harsh realities of life on the reservation, the uncaring attitude of the authorities toward natives, the loss of native culture - it was very powerful, all leading up to the closing captions which tell us that no one even bothers to keep any statistics about missing Native American women. It should make all non-Natives wonder why we're so uncaring.
This is an American movie, but I think it's a very relevant and powerful movie for Canadians to watch. We have our own baggage with horrible reservation conditions and the now well-known issue of "Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women." I'm not sure you can watch this movie and not be stricken with a sense of horror and guilt about the conditions and attitudes Native Americans (and Native Canadians) are forced to endure. This is highly recommended watching. (8/10)