Mark Reviews Movies: LET HIM GO

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 5, 2020

Marriages in drama are often in trouble. It seems rare to see a good, solid one, based on mutual trust, understanding, and respect that have been built up over the years or decades. Such a couple can talk without words—a sigh or even just a look will do. The two fight, yes, but that's not the point. Indeed, it's barely an obstacle, because such couples have seen plenty of disagreements and arguments. They also know that such things will pass, that they'll learn from the experience, and that they'll come out the other end a bit stronger for working out whatever temporarily came between them.

Such is the bond that exists between George (Kevin Costner) and Margaret Blackledge (Diane Lane), who have been married for unknown decades. Living on a ranch in Montana, the two are finally and completely happy when we first meet them. They have an adult son, who has married and given the two their first grandchild. All of them live under the same roof. George and Margaret don't have to say that this is paradise on Earth. A silent look and a full-faced smile shared between them is more than enough.

Bad things happen here and quickly, but that unshakeable bond remains. As rare as it may seem for a film to give us a marriage as sturdy and filled with unmistakable love as the one here, it's even more surprising that the relationship becomes the focus of Let Him Go. This is, after all, a story that begins with a death, builds up to a sudden disappearance, and really gets started when Margaret packs up the station wagon for a road trip for a confrontation. She even packs George's old service revolver, just in case.

Everything in director Thomas Bezucha's screenplay (based on Larry Watson's novel) is pointing us toward a thriller. The couple decides that they're going to rescue their grandson from an abusive situation, and they know, deep down, that the abuser and those surrounding him aren't going to give up the boy without some kind of fight.

Margaret is ready for it all. George would rather it didn't have to come to this, but he's going to follow his wife—wherever she goes, whatever her intentions may be, to whatever fate awaits them. After packing his suitcase, George wanders out of the room without it. Margaret thinks he has changed his mind, but her husband explains he's just turning off the water. "I'm not coming home to busted pipes," he says, which basically tells us everything we need to know about the man—one of few words but always speaking the right ones when he does talk.

The shock here is that the film is filled with such little moments and tiny details, which add up to a pretty comprehensive view of these characters individually and as a couple. The story, set in the 1960s, begins with domestic happiness, but then, the couple's son (played by Ryan Bruce) is killed after falling off a horse, leaving his wife Lorna (Kayil Carter) a widow and his newborn son without a father.

Years pass in a single cut, with George and Margaret seemingly dressing for a funeral. Instead, they're getting ready for Lorna's wedding to Donnie Weboy (Will Brittain). Her son is now a boy, a year or some months away from starting school.

The ranch empties. George and Margaret try to adjust to the silence. While buying groceries, Margaret witnesses Donnie slap his stepson and hit Lorna. By the time she gets to the family's apartment (baking a cake as an excuse to visit and convince Lorna to leave), the three have left town to live with Donnie's family somewhere in North Dakota. Right then and there, Margaret makes up her mind to save her grandson, because that's the kind of person she is. George decides as soon as he sees in his wife's face and hears in her voice that she's serious, because her assuredness of what's right is one of things he loves most about her.

This is engaging, not because of the build-up of tension (although it's there, especially when the couple finally confronts their sort-of relatives), but because Bezucha takes his time, observes these characters, and allows the specifics of how and why this marriage works to emerge. We know a clash and, likely, violence will be the result of this trip (As the two get closer to their destination, it becomes clear that the Weboy clan possesses no small degree of power and influence in the area), but as the old cliché goes, the journey is what really matters here.

George and Margaret travel from Montana to North Dakota, making a few stops along the way for information (George's connections as a retired lawman, vaguely famous in the region, help) or to rest (They meet Peter, played by Booboo Stewart, a young Native American man in a scene of calm before the inevitable storm, although it's really setting up another ally in the fight to come). They reminisce and occasionally bicker (Margaret's look when he buys a bottle of whiskey to go and George's reaction when he discovers the pistol), but the two mostly share comfortable silences that say everything.

We believe this marriage, and we come to believe in it, too. On a plot level, that ramps up the tension as George and Margaret encounter various Weboys (Jeffrey Donovan plays a false-smiling uncle, and Lesley Manville shows up as the tough, authoritative matriarch), leading to an unstoppable series of threats and violence. If all of that mainly feels like the requirements of a plot, it's only because Let Him Go, with strong and specific performances from Lane and Costner, is telling a completely different, far more compelling story on the road toward a thriller.

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