Here’s a film that first screened in the “premieres” section at the Sundance Film Festival in January and has been unfairly dumped via a September release. Julian Higgins’ “God’s Country” will likely turn out to be one of the most underrated movies of 2022.
Higgins’ drama has Thandiwe Newton’s grieving, lonely and very progressive college professor embarking on a psychological game of cat-and-mouse with two toxic male hunters she catches trespassing on her property.
It’s a simmering slowburn and a career-peak for Newton. It also introduces Higgins as a major new voice in indie cinema, most notably for the way he manages to infuse character and tension in beautifully symmetrical fashion.
The film mixes its usage of genre tropes; it can be seen as a drama, a thriller or even a nuanced character study. Despite it’s academic milieu, there are also neo-western elements in “God’s Country”. Higgins tries to tackles the racial and gender divide in today’s America. He captures the current zeitgeist like very few directors have these days.
It’s quality stuff, but not enough people are seeing the damn thing. Its September 16th theatrical release date just came and went. It even took a fellow critic to alert me that it got even released. What gives? I get that it’s not the most audience friendly film, but if more critics would have seen it then maybe it would have built some momentum or, really, just any kind of buzz.
The film currently 77 Metascore (based on 15 reviews) and an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. Seek it out.
Edward Berger seems to have settled on what comes next. His Lance Armstrong biopic, starring Austin Butler, is now holding casting calls, with production eyed for January.