Mark Reviews Movies: GOD'S COUNTRY (2022)

God's Country, IFC Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 15, 2022

Something lights a fuse inside Sandra (Thandiwe Newton), an unassuming and much-liked college professor. It burns slowly in God's Country and then brighter and brighter still, until the light of that once-small fire is blinding.

The ignition point might have been the death of her mother, with whom Sandra lived and for whom she cared for some significant portion of her life. It might be when she spots a red pickup truck parked in the driveway of her remote cabin on the edge of a forest. This is private property—her property, to be clear. There are rules we're supposed to follow as a society, and they really come down to matters of polite custom. If we're not polite to and considerate of each other, there is, really, only one other alternative of how we'll behave with other people.

The point is that the conflict of this film, written by director Julian Higgins and Shaye Ogbonna, isn't just about a dead relative or a truck. It's about someone who does follow those rules, even though the world and her life and her jobs over the years have repeatedly proven to her that other people can't or simply won't do the same. Sandra remains optimistic, though—as much as she can in the face of seemingly minor inconveniences and major systematic injustices, which both suggest that the social order is just one disaster or even just one act of impoliteness away from collapsing.

How does one deal with that knowledge? One can put hope in other people as individuals and within systems, wishing for the best or at least the bare minimum, or a person can retreat, as Sandra did all those years ago, to some isolated part of the country and hope that the few people there won't be further proof.

There are some big ideas in this little tale, adapted from the short story "Winter Light" by James Lee Burke. Wisely, they exist between the lines of a film that possesses the atmosphere of a thriller, the intimacy of a character study, and a central performance that elevates both of those intentions with its nuanced sense of gradual escalation. Newton conveys so much about Sandra, a woman of few words—although all of those words are carefully considered and reflect some idea of trying to be diplomatic for the sake of keeping things civil—and of deep, sorrowful, and increasingly desperate silences. All of it points toward someone on the edge, although the mystery of what lies beyond that edge is the source of a lot of tension here.

Sandra's story begins with her saying a final, unspoken goodbye to her mother, watching as her remains are cremated, driving home to the cabin she had shared with the mother, and burying the ashes on some spot on the property. Life just goes on from there, with Sandra getting back to work at the local university almost immediately.

Arthur (Kai Lennox), the head of Sandra's department and her nearest neighbor, offers some condolences and some wisdom about how a parent's death brings up a lot of unresolved issues. For Sandra, some of those include her mother's tendency to look for a fight and hold a grudge. Surely, some of that accounts for why that pickup truck, parked at the end of her driveway, becomes such a sticking point for Sandra.

The truck belongs to two brothers, Nathan (Joris Jarsky) and Samuel (Jefferson White). Sandra leaves a note on the windshield, asking the two hunters not to park on her property anymore, but after leaving behind the crumpled note and the carcass of a bird, the men park there again. She directly asks them to leave, but while Nathan tries to politely plead his case, Samuel insinuates threats and moves toward Sandra with anger in his eyes. The situation is resolved without incident, but when Sandra is away from the cabin the following day, the brothers' truck is there on her property yet again.

As for the rest of this barebones plot, it amounts to a lot of back-and-forth escalation of the conflict. Sandra involves the local Acting Sheriff Wolf (Jeremy Bobb), who seems annoyed and then incapable of doing his job, and the brothers—or at least the younger one—continue to find ways to intimidate her, even after they stop leaving the truck in her driveway. There's a sort of quid pro quo of tension happening here, because even Sandra begins behaving like a stalker—either to prove the point she made to the two men about the social need to agree to and follow rules or to figure out if there's another, more healthy solution to the conflict.

The film does offer some glimmers of hope, such as a scene in a church, where Sandra and Nathan connect over mothers and lapsed faith. She and Wolf have a chat at a holiday party at Arthur's house, where Sandra reveals her past, the event that made her reconsider her perspective on how society functions and how quickly it can fall into chaos, and what the peace of this "unspoiled" piece of the world has meant to her. Even at work, Arthur and the other professors seem to begin understanding that an almost entirely white faculty—meaning with the exception of Sandra—could be a hindrance to the students' ability to see things from perspectives they otherwise wouldn't.

Whether or not those moments of civility, understanding, and empathy pay off in any way is, of course, the entire point of God's Country. What can be said of the film's conclusion is that it resolves this conflict in a definitive, logical, and consistent way, which is all the more impactful because of how clear Newton makes Sandra and what Sandra comes to represent about one's conception of society.

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