There were a lot of great movies last year, so it's not really surprising that Wind River was more or less overlooked. I saw it in a 92-year-old movie theater in upstate New York. The tickets were the carnival kind and all the seats creaked. It was kind of magic.
Written and directed by Taylor Sheridan of Hell or High Water fame, the film is about an FBI rookie (Elizabeth Olsen) who teams up with an emotionally damaged wildlife expert (Jeremy Renner) to investigate the violent death of a teenage Arapaho woman in rural Wyoming. It's set in the dead of winter. There is a joke about Elizabeth Olsen's character not having a warm enough coat. Guillermo del Toro is a fan.
While my beloved coworker Myles believes an aspirationally balmy summer camp movie is the right choice for a snow day flick, I was thinking, why not watch a taut-as-hell neo-Western — one that will make you thank your lucky stars that you aren't currently trying to solve a murder mystery on a 3500 square mile snow-covered Indian reservation. You are (hopefully) safe and warm and your biggest problem is trying to decide what to stream on Netflix. Get some perspective.
Thumbnail image courtesy of Lionsgate