SYNOPSIS: In “Americana,” a neo-Western starring Halsey and Sydney Sweeney, and now playing in theatres, a group of disparate characters are brought together by a rare Indigenous jacket.
CAST: Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser, Halsey, Eric Dane, Zahn McClarnon, and Simon Rex. Directed by Tony Tost.
REVIEW: Set in a small South Dakota town “Americana” is a gritty neo-Western that feels like an artifact from the time when the Coen Bros and Tarantino crime dramas roamed free.
In his feature film directorial debut Tony Tost places a stolen Indigenous heirloom in the middle of the action in a story featuring a diner waitress with a speech impediment (Sydney Sweeney) and dreams of becoming a star in Nashville, a lovelorn military veteran (Paul Walter Hauser), a vicious killer (Eric Dane), a Western antiquities dealer (Simon Rex), the leader of an Indigenous group (Zahn McClarnon), a desperate woman on-the-run (Halsey) and her young son (Gavin Maddox Bergman) who sincerely believes that he’s the reincarnation of legendary Lakota warrior Sitting Bull.
It feels like a mid-90s indie ensemble piece, complete with a broken timeline, romance, violence, quirky humor and lots of star power. Tost avoids clutter by cutting the fat, paring the story down to its essentials. The result is a tightly crafted, violent crime drama that tells a compelling story with interesting characters and subtext about identity, cultural appropriation, greed and the commodification of Indigenous culture.
At the same time, by avoiding the stereotypes of the Western genre, it feels fresh and authentic, particularly in the case of Halsey, in her feature film debut. Her character Mandy has a troubled past, present and is trying to make a better future for herself and son. Driven to extremes, she consistently subverts our expectations to create a character that never goes over-the-top but packs a huge punch.
“Americana” is a welcome return to the quirky indie films of the Jean Chrétien years.
The last time we saw Danny Torrance, son of Jack and Wendy Torrance by way of Stephen King, he was a young boy who had trapped his father in a deadly maze outside The Overlook Hotel. In Stanley Kubrick’s film “The Shining” little Danny has psychic powers known as the “shining.” A new film, “Doctor Sleep,” brings us up to date on Danny’s later life and the effects of family tauma.
Now going by the more adult name Dan (Ewan McGregor), Torrance is still haunted by the events of his youth. Alcoholic and unhappy, he pursues peace by working in a hospice, using his unique power to comfort the dying. His patients call him Doctor Sleep and soon his work, along with the help of AA, help him overcome his torment. His tranquility is undone when he meets psychic teenager Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran). “You’re magic,” Abra says, “like me.” “I don’t know about magic,” Dan replies. “I always called it “the shining.”
Abra’s abilities—“Her head is like a radio that sometimes picks up strange stations.”—have caught the attention of the True Knot, a tribe of demonic psychics led by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), an almost-immortal being who feeds off children’s telepathic abilities to prolong her own life. “They eat screams and drink pain,” says Dan’s mentor-in-shining Dick Hallorann (Carl Lumbly). To battle Rose and her evil minions Danny must face his greatest fear, returning to the psychological horrors of the Overlook Hotel.
The spirit of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” hangs heavy over “Doctor Sleep”—visual homages and callbacks abound—but where the 1980 film is an exercise in icy exterior thrills the new one, directed by Mike “Oculus” Flanagan, brings a thaw to the action. He has opened up the action and the characters. Kubrick created claustrophobia by setting the action mostly in the closed off rooms and hallways of the Overlook Hotel while Flanagan, who also wrote the script, lets the characters roam free, exploring the world around them and the inner workings of their extra-special-psyches. It makes for a much different feeling film that contains similar amounts of suspense—although it must be said, not nearly the same level of outright fear—but an added dose of emotional resonance and friendship.
McGregor is never quite as compelling as Jack Nicholson was in the original film but the supporting characters pick up much of the slack. As Abra, Curran is the most compelling character on screen. Fearless and resilient, she has an open heart and it is her friendship with Torrance that brings his lifelong journey for peace to a head. In one nicely rendered scene Dan speaks through her in a moment ripe with danger. Curran embodies the character and it is eerie to see the thirteen-year-old take on the weight of her adult counterpart.
Ferguson plays Rose the Hat as a bohemian villain. Callous and cruel, she brings a much-needed sense of unpredictability and danger to a story that isn’t particularly scary. It’s atmospheric and the character work brings us in, but it likely won’t haunt your dreams with the exception of one scene.
(MILD SPOILER ALERT) The True Knot believe that pain purifies the “steam,” the essence of their victims, which leads to a very unpleasant scene involving the demise of Jacob Tremblay as a young baseball player. You either remember him as the vulnerable child in “Room” or the foul-mouthed star of “Good Boys,” but this grim scene will give you new, nasty memories of his work.
“Doctor Sleep” often feels like a tribute to “The Shining” but brings enough of its own ideas on the effects of childhood trauma and the lingering pain of a shattered family to add richness and originality to the movie.
