Cowboys (2020)

[olivermoss]

Cowboys is an indie film about a troubled family with a transgender child. I didn't watch it for a bit because I was having trouble scoping out whether I wanted to see it. I wasn't sure how everything would be handled.

The film did cast a ten year old transgender boy in the role, Sasha Knight. Finding someone right for that role is an impressive casting feat. I'm glad I checked it out.



The mother doesn't accept her transgender child, so his mentally ill father fresh from prison kidnaps him to try to help him. The father promptly loses his medication in the woods. He problem is never stated, but it's presented like bipolar disorder.

The movie was great at establishing characters and evoking a sense of place, but the plot was a bit of a mess. A mentally ill father with a criminal record kidnaps a kid and two people wind up shot, and then everyone just magically decides to accept the kid from the Mom to the classmates. The film went from being a very grounded, realistic portrayal of American life and the dangers of an overly militarized police force to acting like it was all a big fun boy's adventure. Like, if this was going to be a boy's adventure movie at least have them have caught a fish or found tasty berries in the woods or done something cool on the trip. Have a few beats before things start going wrong.

IDK, maybe sensitive indie films aren't my thing. I am too much of a genre fan. But just... I don't think public sentiment would play out that way in reality. It's like the film hopped genres right at the end.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

That sounds like a genre hop. I feel like that's too frequently been my experience with indie films - they either go with a "tragedy is deep" trauma-porn bad end, or they swing wildly to "now that something Bad Enough happened, the happy ending is Earned! (even though the things that happened have no actual connection to the ending happening this way)."

I'm not really interested in bleak downer endings either, but I'd like a happy/hopeful end that feels plausible. Or even a bittersweet end that makes sense for the story.

But it does sound like the film at least did some things right, with character and casting and such. I hope the people involved have the opportunity to make other things in the future.

[olivermoss]

The film jumps between armed stand-off with overly militarized police to cozy breakfast. It's like.... y'all missed a step? Just went from 'things are bad' to 'but it's all okay because people are basically good'

Yeah, the film did do a lot right. But it's like, I oddly find it a downer for a highly implausible 'everything is suddenly good' twist to be the only thing they could come up with.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, that's... pretty jarring. And kind of a weird refusal to engage with things the movie itself set up? If it wanted to have a "people are basically good" theme, that's fine... but it seemed to deliberately invoke the existence of people who are genuinely NOT good.

I know what you mean. Even as someone who pretty much wants happy endings for things (with some exceptions), I find implausible/unrealistic happy endings like that to be fairly depressing, especially when it's a tonal shift from the rest of the story. Paradoxically, instead of feeling hopeful or aspirational, that kind of "happy twist" makes the idea of having a real-life happy ending feel unrealistic.

A LOT of people are sick of misery and trauma porn, self included, and I don't really enjoy utterly bleak endings for these kinds of stories... but "everything is actually fine forever with no complications, yay!" isn't great either.

[olivermoss]

"Paradoxically, instead of feeling hopeful or aspirational, that kind of "happy twist" makes the idea of having a real-life happy ending feel unrealistic."

Yes, exactly that.

I would like a hopeful story. Honestly, I was hoping for a hopeful story with lots of validation.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, I'd much rather have a validating, hopeful story that feels plausible. :/

[lokifan]

Yeah, that makes sense. I don't think I could cope with the genre swap either, it sounds so jarring.