Taylor Sheridan makes the snow and isolation frightening in a crime thriller carried by Jeremy Renner’s restraint. The speeches explain too much, but the performances give its familiar investigation a convincing weight of grief.
Wind River is a good, sombre crime thriller that occasionally talks itself into trouble. Writer-director Taylor Sheridan uses a murder investigation on a Wyoming reservation to examine grief, neglect and violence against Native American people. He also wants the satisfaction of an efficient thriller, with clues to follow and danger to anticipate. For much of its 107 minutes those aims sit comfortably together, though he too often interrupts the investigation to explain what the people and places have already shown us.
Ben Richardson’s cinematography lets the snow dominate, making distances look punishing before anybody needs to explain the cold. The open country gives us plenty to examine, and the attention paid to tracks makes looking carefully part of the pleasure. Neil Spisak’s production design keeps the inhabited spaces plain enough to belong to that country, without making deprivation picturesque. That restraint works: the surroundings suggest daily hardship without every detail demanding that we stop and acknowledge it.
Jeremy Renner plays Cory Lambert with a concentration that makes watching him observe things interesting. His reserve is useful in a procedural, encouraging us to look harder because he appears to be doing the same. It becomes less convincing when the script asks him to deliver another settled truth about suffering, giving a guarded man an unlikely readiness to explain himself. His strongest work comes in the pauses around those statements, when he seems reluctant to say quite as much as the writer requires.
Gil Birmingham, as Martin Hanson, gives the grief a weight the dialogue cannot always manage. We were moved by his strained composure, by the visible effort involved in speaking without giving too much away. Graham Greene’s Ben adds a welcome dryness, keeping some ordinary human impatience in a film prone to solemnity. These supporting performances matter because they give the reservation people we remember individually, with feelings that extend beyond the immediate demands of the case.
Elizabeth Olsen does creditable work as Jane Banner, the FBI agent, although the writing gives her less to play. Her unfamiliarity with the place helps us follow the investigation, but too much of her role involves receiving information. We can believe her concern without learning enough about the person who feels it. The familiar crime-film arrangement, with an outsider asking questions and a more knowledgeable man providing answers, limits a character who needs more independence.
Gary D. Roach’s editing gives the attention to clues a satisfying rhythm, then has to accommodate the script’s longer explanations. Those pauses are where the tension slackens, because the next speech seldom tells us much we have not already understood. The score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is more effective at sustaining the sadness beneath the business of the investigation. Its mournfulness can press hard, but it suits the performances and keeps the suffering from being forgotten when there is evidence to discuss.
The western influence is useful here, particularly the importance given to knowing the country and recognising danger before it announces itself. Anyone drawn to patient crime stories should find enough in that attention to justify the occasional lecture. Be prepared for harsh violence, which makes this a poor choice for an undemanding evening. Give it the concentration that Jeremy Renner gives those tracks.
