Woman Walks Ahead tries too hard but doesn’t try too hard enough

A24 / DirecTV

I think most people aren’t so familiar with the story of Sitting Bull, the Lakota resistance leader who was mainly responsible for the defeat of General Custer at Little Bighorn. I know I’m not so familiar with the history or context. In 1890, a woman by the name of Caroline Weldon (played here by Jessica Chastain), who was part of the National Indian Defense Association, traveled with her son to visit and assist Sitting Bull. That son is not in this movie.

Woman Walks Ahead comes from director Steven Knight and writer Susanna White, and it begins with a narration of a letter, as Caroline celebrates the passing of her husband in her request to interview and paint a portrait of Sitting Bull (Michael Greyeyes). But the letter is intercepted by the military near the reservation, featuring Sam Rockwell as Colonel Silas Grove and his commanding officer James McLaughlin (Ciarán Hinds). They think it’s a terrible idea and toss the letter into the fire.

But naturally, Caroline comes anyway, and faces stern pushback, for all the reasons that might be expected — sexism, racism, and a fear that the burgeoning new religious ‘Ghost Dance’ movement might lead to a more organized and dangerous group. And of course, they don’t particularly agree on who has the ‘right’ to the land either.

Caroline manages to find a way to meet Sitting Bull, who is a calm, collected presence. There’s a slow burn of her attempts to convince him to paint his portrait, and there is weirdly a kind of pseudo-romantic tension between them. It certainly doesn’t jibe with the actual story of the two, who were significantly older than the actors portraying them in the movie. It feels a bit … ‘Hollywood’ in the cliché way of things.

Although it’s clear that the movie didn’t want to have a ‘white savior’ arc, it doesn’t avoid this trap — in fact, Sitting Bull is both the ‘Wise Non-White Mentor’ stereotype and Caroline is the ‘Well Meaning White Lady Who Connects Old And New Worlds’ stereotype. The acting of these two is very good, often elevating minimalistic or schmaltzy dialog. The side characters have little depth, meaning the movie wastes Ciarán Hinds and Sam Rockwell.

The movie also rushes the timeline too much and yet holds things in place far too often, usually to show off the gorgeous scenery, which is striking if pointless. There’s an important message underlying at all, the imbalance of power and overwhelming oppressive force coming towards the Lakota. The problems here lie with the stylistic choices and unnecessary changes to the story for the sake of being more marketable.

This is an indie movie, after all, so I’m not sure what they were hoping for.

Woman Walks Ahead has a run time of 1 hour 42 minutes and is rated R for brief violence and language.