Charlie Plummer is one of those young actors that you just know is going to give an amazing performance one day. His roles so far have shown an emerging talent and screen presence. We may have found his first stand out in National Anthem, a beautifully shot film about finding community and belonging where Plummer gives one of the most quietly earth shattering performances of the year.
With his River Phoenix like vibe, Plummer captures the unsure yet unyielding tenacity that Phoenix did in My Own Private Idaho. He’s a young man who has never had the chance to find out all he can be and he begins to find it when he discovers a community of queer free spirits and a young woman who opens his heart. His journey through this is made quite remarkable by Plummer’s rawness and the way he exposes us to so much behind his eyes. It is riveting to watch and so satisfying.
The film is rather beautiful in its simplicity using the Gay Rodeo circuit (a real thing) as its backdrop and its symbol of liberation. The story quite gently introduces us to themes of chosen family, polyamory, and gender as performance without being brutal about heteronormative oppression. This is far less a story of trauma than of finding out just how complicated we can be. I apprecited how the film may have flirted slightly with some stereotypes in Lively’s regressive/neglectful parent, Park’s magical queer mother, and Rosado’s jealous boyfriend, but always subverted these by drawling them slightly more nuanced than one may expect. In the end, National Anthem opens a window into how else we can be and how “nothing is written in stone.”
But what is mainly incredible about National Anthem is watching a young actor deliver what will be one of his highs in a career which should likely be full of them.
National Anthem
Starring: Charlie Plummer, Mason Alexander Park, Eve Lindley, Robyn Lively, Rene Rosado
Director: Luke Gilford
Writers: David Largman Murray, Kevin Best, Luke Gilford
No comments:
Post a Comment