I never thought tribal resistance, female strength, and the sweeping West could be so boring.
Woman Walks Ahead concerns Catherine Weldon (Jessica Chastain), the white woman who travels from New York to the plains, seeking Sitting Bull for a portrait. She's a painter, it's the 1980s, and such a thing sounds absurd to everyone who's anyone. Her desire to go -- however it actually played out in history, which, I expect, is fantastically different than the dramatization presented here -- seems to be little more than a whim, a feminist urge to seek out a certain legendary freedom a woman cannot claim in New York. Trivial? Maybe, but a fun start to the tale, and a welcome, expected addition to Chastain's extensive list of feminist projects.
As we might expect from the title, this picture works best when it centers on Chastain, her billowing dress belying her defiant strength, silhouetted against gorgeous photography. Unfortunately, the film focuses so much on her experience that it begins to feel, well before the end of the film, that she is the reason for any strife against the Dawes Act, which did many terrible things but essentially worked to transfer tribal land to private hands and begin assimilating Native cultures into white settlements. If this film were taken out of even the most basic context, an idiot might think that Catherine Weldon was the outspoken hero who saw the horrors for what they were and raised up rebellion singlehandedly.
About the time the character begins to notice things aren't all peachy in Lakota territory, she meets Sitting Bull (Michael Greyeyes), a fascinating character here who is clearly world-weary and seeking a life of meaning in an increasingly meaningless world. Wise and noble, and more than a little eccentric to the white woman (read: to us), he helps the film feel like a character study simply because of the masterful performance of Greyeyes. Unfortunately, the film is not a character study: Weldon and Sitting Bull develop a weird connection that the film never tries to test, and before it even becomes interesting the plot tries to open into a historical-political drama that is too specific to be sweeping and too vague to be engaging.
The specifics of the film escaped me. but I don't think it's because I was too bored to pay attention. Ciaran Hinds and Sam Rockwell pop in for a few scenes to give some context (maybe?) but it's clear nobody behind the scenes cared about their characters. As a history lesson, the film fails utterly. Even knowing better, I was left with the distinct impression that Sitting Bull was only "woken" to the plight of his people when a white woman came over to paint his picture. Similarly, and perhaps more insidiously, the film's ending arguably seeks to exculpate her from the resistance's resultant massacre.
I might be too harsh. It's all lovely to look at, and diverting enough for an hour and a half. It boasts some solid performances and raises interesting questions about the problems when social justice is not intersectional. It could also be used as a case study for writers as to how tricky history can be to dramatize and make relevant. So if you are willing to pay attention through its dull delivery, give this one a try. Just don't expect it to walk ahead of you, because it won't.
IMDb: Woman Walks Ahead
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