National Anthem

Luke Gilford's beautiful coming-of-age story about finding community and clarifying your own personal version of the American dream is a perfect little SxSW gem. Charlie Plummer stars as Dylan, a 21-year-old living in rural New Mexico who works pick-up construction jobs to help support his little brother (Joey DeLeon) and alcoholic single mother (Robyn Lively). One day, he hops into the back of a truck looking for workers to help out at a remote ranch that turns out to be home to a community of queer ranchers and rodeo performers. Dylan finds himself drawn to these people, especially a beguiling barrel racer named Sky, played by the luminous trans actor Eve Lindley. Dylan gets swept up in the complicated relationship between Sky and the ranch's head honcho, Pepe (Rene Rosado). He also befriends a kind soul, Carrie (Mason Alexander Park), who has found their place in this community.

Forgoing all the now-routine interpersonal dramas expected with this kind of queer coming-of-age tale in favor of a more complex and nuanced yet simple and even old-fashioned exploration of contemporary masculinity set against the backdrop of cowboy culture and the American West, the film unfolds like a dream coming true. Yet the romantic ideals of unlocking identity, fulfilling desires, and finding meaningful connections are not painted with an artificially rose-colored brush. Gilford had co-screenwriters David Largman Murray and Kevin Best, are able to create tangible, credible, and relatable conflict that, like all the best movie dramas, feels universal because of its specificity. Plummer (so wonderful as a teen actor in Andrew Haigh's cowboy drama Lean on Pete, and as the kidnaped hier in Ridley Scott's historical thriller All the Money in the World, gives one of the year's best performances as a kid who awakens to the understanding that his options for life are not as limited as he's always assumed there were. And Lindley, who I didn't remember from her small roles in After Yang and Bros but who I won't forget after this picture) casts the same instantaneous spell on the viewer that benignly bewitches Dylan.

I do wish Gilford hadn't succumbed to the standard indie aesthetic of jump-cut tight-handheld close-ups in scenes of flirtation and intimacy, but I'm glad he pulled back and locked his camera down for key scenes in which characters have heartfelt conversations amidst the vast, wide-open landscapes of New Mexico. Just seeing trans and queer characters and stories set amidst this milieu says a great deal on its own about rugged American individualism in the twenty-first century. These filmmakers clearly understand that the transformative power of a good story well told is a thousand times more meaningful than a heavy-handed work of overt messaging. National Anthem is one of the rare films from 2024 that I predict will stay with me for a long, long time.