![]() One shocking scene, all of which takes place on camera, involves an axe and the bloody, gory wound it causes. Most of it is related to guns (the consequences of which imply that using a gun for self-defense can still result in tragedy), and there's a glimpse of domestic abuse, as well as the intention of sexual assault. Other than smoking by negative characters and a heroic character ( Kevin Costner) taking a swig from a brown bag outside a liquor store, iffy content consists primarily of violence. ![]() The experiences of a kind, independent Indigenous teen character ( Booboo Stewart) provide insight into the cruelty of the Native American boarding schools that existed at the time. That said, the movie also paints a stepfather (and in this case, stepuncles and a stepgrandmother) as villainous, which may be upsetting for blended families. Adults may find lots to debate about this story and its outcome, but teens are most likely to see it as a story about grandparents who will do whatever it takes to keep their grandchildren safe. It centers on two strong-willed grandmothers ( Diane Lane and Lesley Manville) who face off over the custody and well-being of their 3-year-old grandson. ![]() Throw in the help of a young Native American man who lives in the wilderness after escaping from a government re-education school (a tangent that surely wasn’t this abrupt in the pages of the novel), and you get dangerously close to turning the sturdy, sane Blackledges into unlikely action heroes interchangeable with those from a hundred less serious flicks.Parents need to know that Let Him Go is a 1960s-set Western noir adapted from Larry Watson's same-named novel. But when that fails, so does the script’s commitment to anything like narrative logic. George and Margaret first react more or less believably, looking for a peaceful solution. The action doesn’t get quite that extreme, but it’s bad enough. Instead we get a family full of leering thugs, whose depiction sometimes suggests they might have a cousin out in the barn who dresses in other people’s flesh. Rescuing Jimmy (and possibly Lorna) from a possessive, abusive husband would have been plenty of drama for this hitherto quiet, sensitive picture. Even several towns away, people whisper about them as if they quietly ruled both Dakotas when we’re finally in their kitchen, Bezucha presents matriarch Blanche Weboy (Lesley Manville) as if she were the middle-American equivalent of a cartel boss, just back from the hairdresser and dripping with faux-hospitable menace. We learn that the Weboy clan is a tight-knit crew with a bad reputation. Margaret, whose stubborn sense of duty George knows well, has no intention of relinquishing her responsibility for the boy.īut where the couple’s clue-following road trip into North Dakota promises to explore the multiple meanings the film’s title has for its grieving protagonists - which “him” will they be saying goodbye to here, or are the losses of son and grandson entwined? - the journey instead left-turns into the badlands of genre fare. George, inclined to defer to the legal bonds of wedlock, believes he’s hunting Donnie down only so Margaret can say a proper goodbye to the grandson who now belongs to someone else. Costner and Lane have no trouble communicating how well these two know each other after their decades together, but the mores of their time give their mission some unspoken friction.
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