{"id":1737896,"date":"2022-11-14T08:13:58","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T13:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1737896"},"modified":"2022-11-14T10:49:07","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T15:49:07","slug":"gods-country-captures-woke-overreach-to-near-perfection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gods-country-captures-woke-overreach-to-near-perfection\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cGod\u2019s Country\u201d Captures Woke Overreach to Near Perfection"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgods-country-captures-woke-overreach-to-near-perfection%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1737896&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/GODS-COUNTRY-review-thandiwe-newton-2.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p><strong>\u201cGod\u2019s Country\u201d belongs in a time capsule.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The indie drama shows how woke storytelling can crush a film\u2019s creative soul. The plot\u2019s potential is clear, and the cast is capable of spinning something profound out of the themes in play.<\/p>\n<p>Yet over and again a woke hand reaches into the narrative and rips out the film\u2019s beating heart.<\/p>\n<p>Thandiwe Newton stars as Sandra, a professor in a Montana town that didn\u2019t help Joe Biden win the 2020 election. She\u2019s mourning the loss of her mother as the story opens, but her grief is interrupted by hunters parked on her wooded property.<\/p>\n<p>They didn\u2019t ask permission to deposit their red (get it?) truck on her driveway, and she\u2019s none too happy about it.<\/p>\n<p>That tension grows after Sandra asks local law enforcement to have her back in the dustup. There\u2019s little they can do, they claim, forcing the professor to take matters into her own hands. Her empathy makes some headway with one of the hunters (Joris Jarsky), but others in the community (including her boss) aren\u2019t receptive to her progressive ways.<\/p>\n<p>Based on the short story \u201cWinter Light\u201d by James Lee Burke, \u201cGod\u2019s Country\u201d is two movies in one. The main story is clear \u2013 a showdown between an enlightened Sandra and yokels with little patience for her book learnin\u2019 and fancy talkin\u2019.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">IFC Films to distribute God\u2019s Country starring Thandiwe Newton <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cTFQPIhccw\">https:\/\/t.co\/cTFQPIhccw<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GYy87HE3TM\">pic.twitter.com\/GYy87HE3TM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Hollywood Stock Exchange (@HSXMOVIES) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HSXMOVIES\/status\/1492266332221734914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 11, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>First-time director Julian Higgins has a genre story on his hands, but he refuses to lean into its trappings. The pace is slow, and Sandra proves challenging to root for on the surface. She\u2019s withdrawn and focused, only coming to life when she\u2019s in a classroom setting.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201csecond\u201d film offers an academic showdown between Sandra and her (presumably) bigoted peers. Higgins handles the B story with all the grace of Michael Moore on Election Day.<\/p>\n<p>Sandra\u2019s push for a diversity hire runs into a brick wall. Given the tenor of our times, she could have had her boss\u2019 scalp, and a hefty bonus to boot, for her Identity Politics crusade (even in a red state).<\/p>\n<p>Instead, it\u2019s part of Sandra\u2019s downward spiral. And when the two movies fuse into one \u201cGod\u2019s Country\u201d goes down for the count.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodintoto.com\/meta-storytelling-clerks-see-how-they-run\/\"><strong>RELATED META STORYTELLING \u2013 INSPIRED OR JUST LAZY?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sandra\u2019s connection with a local cop leads to the film\u2019s big reveal, another absurd note in a film swimming in them.<\/p>\n<p>Need an example?<\/p>\n<p>Why would one of the film\u2019s academic all-stars be seen with the local knuckle draggers, let alone act like they\u2019re long-lost friends?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGod\u2019s Country\u201d can\u2019t resist a few genre tropes, but the screenplay shrewdly gives Sandra some palpable flaws. Her push for progress reveals her self-absorbed pose when an attempt to support a female peer blows up in her face.<\/p>\n<p>Sandra never veers into a super heroine with guns a-blazing, either. Instead, her moral outrage grows by degrees as the injustices pile up around her. The screenplay still delivers some ham-fisted moments unworthy of Newton.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s\u00a0little the actress can\u00a0do to make Sandra\u2019s journey realistic or revelatory.<\/p>\n<p>It goes without saying Higgins and co. paint the red state types as backward, while Sandra\u2019s flawed soul is the film\u2019s moral core. We\u2019ve come to expect that lopsided storytelling from Hollywood, Inc., but the film\u2019s woke impulses make matters worse.<\/p>\n<p>The film\u2019s best sequence takes place in a church. Sandra meets one of her stalkers and, rather than demean his faith she uses the moment to find common ground. It\u2019s a wonderfully directed scene and, potentially, a way for \u201cGod\u2019s Country\u201d to find its purpose.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, it\u2019s left behind for a collection of victimhood tics that, no matter how artfully assembled, can\u2019t sustain a feature film.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HiT or Miss<\/strong>: \u201cGod\u2019s Country\u201d gussies up its genre story with arthouse aspirations before the film\u2019s woke messaging arrives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cGod\u2019s Country\u201d belongs in a time capsule. The indie drama shows how woke storytelling can crush a film\u2019s creative soul. The plot\u2019s potential is clear, and the cast is capable<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1737899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1737896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1737896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1737899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1737896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1737896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1737896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}