by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $17.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Matthew McConaughey, Angelina LookingGlass, Kurt Russell, Cole Sprouse
Intro:
… at once grand in scope and rather jarring, both in tone and genre.
The Rivals of Amziah King is an immediately sweaty movie. From its living-amber colour palette, to DP Miguel I. Littin-Menz’s steady hand capturing all manner of buzzing flies, to Matthew McConaughey’s titular beekeeper kicking off an impromptu bluegrass hootenanny outside a fast food joint, there is an instant and permeating sense of atmosphere and place as the film kicks off.
From there, writer/director Andrew Patterson (The Vast of Night) examines every brick and pore of this Oklahoma farmland. King’s trade is detailed in quite gratifying fashion, from the mechanics of beekeeping and honey processing, to procedures for dealing with errant swarms, to a somewhat cheesy but remarkably fitting allegory for the entire town as its own hive colony. In as quick a fashion as the stomp-clap introduction, the world-building gives the audience an ingrained feeling of welcomeness, elevating Southern charm into something that feels like you’re breathing in while watching everyone buzz about their day. It feels like entering a home for the first time and already becoming part of the family.
While community and interpersonal bonds are consistent themes throughout, the film itself… well, it’d be more fitting to call this a double-feature packaged as a single release. The demarcation between both halves of the film is at once grand in scope and rather jarring, both in tone and genre.
The first half revolves directly around King and his place within the town, presenting his attitudes on life, work, and family through the prism of a ramshackle musical. The aforementioned descriptor of “stomp-clap” will likely have already gotten readers to realise if this soundtrack will be to their liking, but for a sonic mood that has gotten quite the flogging since the days of Mumford & Sons, McConaughey and co. do a lot to enforce music itself as part of the bigger communal ritual, especially as he brings foster daughter Kateri (Angelina LookingGlass) into the fold, singing in harmony, in order to live in harmony.
It’s remarkably light initially, even considering the viscerally hilarious gore on display that audiences should lock in with good and early, as the tonal shifts are only just beginning. Once the baton gets passed, what was comforting and inviting turns much darker and tenser. It gear-shifts right out of its musical morbid comedy beginnings into a neo-Western revenge thriller with elements of heist mixed in. The hand-over from McConaughey’s inescapable charm and dry humour to LookingGlass’ steely determination feels like a vital ingredient has been left out of the potluck recipe, but the sheer conviction in delivering such a spin on a crime caper keeps things more on the rails than one would guess from the jump. It is regionally specific in a way that is consistently fascinating, with a murky approach to morality and inner philosophy that just adds to its intriguing allure.
The resulting defiance of genre boundaries and tonal expectations, which admittedly takes a bit to adjust to, makes for an epic and admirably ambitious showcase of the ethos of small-town solidarity. It examines the lengths that individuals will go for those close to them, whether they be other individuals or entire communities, through a split lens, highlighting the warmth of the lighter side and the bitter chill of the dark in equally intense fashion. It pulls the audience into a social culture where people are at their best when looking out for the best of others.
McConaughey is the syrupy sweet core of the film’s familial foundation, but LookingGlass (delivering a level of hardened feminine not seen in a debut since Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit) is the sharpened sting aimed right at anyone who gets between her and her kin. “Ain’t no one all bad or all good”, so goes the film’s tagline, and by the end, you may surprise yourself at where one’s sympathy and derision end up landing.
The Rivals of Amziah King sticks its callused hands into many different honeycombed genres, and manages to pull golden gratification out of every single one. There’s some lost steam after the midway narrative switch, but the way it delivers such an exquisite and exacting sense of place within its narrative makes any and all mood swings welcoming if it means getting to spend more time just existing in this space. Everything from the local atmosphere to the discussions of potluck politics to the details of beehive heisting glide smoothly across the frame, and despite how intimidating it can appear with its sudden freeze-frame edits and careens into offbeat chuckles, it only stings where it needs to.
