Let Him Go

I have been looking forward to Let Him Go since I saw the trailer several weeks ago (I've not read the book by Larry Watson upon which it is based).  I had the chance to see it Saturday night and it was even better than I was expecting.  George Blackledge (Kevin Costner), a Montana rancher and retired lawman, lives with his wife Margaret (Diane Lane), his son James (Ryan Bruce), his daughter-in-law Lorna (Kayli Carter), and his grandson Jimmy (Bram and Otto Hornung).  The relationship between Margaret and Lorna is tense and it becomes more so when James dies in a horse riding accident.  It is implied that Lorna gets remarried to Donnie Weboy (Will Brittain), in part, as a means to escape Margaret's constant criticism of her as a mother.  When Margaret witnesses Donnie physically abusing Lorna and Jimmy on the street, he suddenly takes them to live with his family in North Dakota and she convinces a reluctant George to go after them to rescue their grandson.  In their search, George and Margaret encounter a young Native American loner named Peter Dragswood (Booboo Stewart) who eventually leads them to Bill Weboy (Jeffrey Donovan) and his sister Blanche (Lesley Manville).  Blanche has no intention of letting her son Donnie and his family leave the Weboy compound ever again but Margaret is just as determined to take Jimmy back to Montana.  I was expecting a Western action thriller but, while there is the requisite shoot-out at the end, it is a powerful character study of two people consumed by grief and regret.  Their characters are developed slowly and deliberately with quiet moments and subtle gestures rather than obvious dialogue.  George buys a bottle of whiskey as Margaret looks on with disapproval to establish that he drinks to mask his sorrow.  Margaret silently packs up the car for the trip to North Dakota without George's knowledge to show that she will stop at nothing once she makes up her mind.  Costner and Lane have great chemistry together and give strong performances but Manville is completely over-the-top and steals every scene she is in.  The interactions between Blanche and Margaret are a lot of fun to watch, even when they become menacing and then violent.  Stewart also gives a powerful performance as a young man traumatized by his experiences at an Indian Residential School and as the personification of Margaret's fears for Jimmy.  I loved the cinematography featuring wide shots of the vast landscape to emphasize the isolation, especially in the scene where Bill drives the Blackledges to the Weboy compound.  This is an old-fashioned Western that is painstakingly crafted, gorgeously shot, and well acted.  I highly recommend it!