This is a film I could write two reviews for, depending on my point of view:
One would talk about how the film shows not a single person of color. I feel like it bothered me less than it should have. Maybe because the film’s focus was, for all its Whiteness and White privilege, on a segment of people that are truly marginalized. But even when you look at the father’s problems, you can look at his circumstances and it’s obvious how much worse they would be if he was a person of color. He probably wouldn’t have lived past the first act.
The other would try to take the film at face value, and look at is as a story of two people in very vulnerable situations, any of which would go very badly for plot purposes in a Hollywood movie. And ultimately, how it’s a story of when even the closest parent and child must eventually separate. And yet, I still see an art-house film espousing the noblest virtues of White America. Of people–independent, everyday folk making their way in the Pac NW who “don’t want no trouble,” who are wounded warriors themselves, who are just trying to do the right by their community and church–moving out of their comfort zones to help a stranger driven by demons, and his daughter.
I really am of two minds about this movie. And that could be a sign that if someone’s privilege can be problematic, it’s my own.