Andrew Patterson’s sophomore function The Rivals of Amziah King is a comedic fashionable Western that swerves headfirst into lurid revenge drama — all whereas that includes soulful musical interludes, centering on a narrative about stolen bees. It runs the emotional and tonal gamut akin to a South Indian blockbuster, with the requisite stylizations that make it really feel monumental in scope. It is nation maximalism, with a extremely managed visible strategy that feels liberated, to the purpose of overcoming even the film’s most noticeable flaws.
It begins out extremely robust, fumbles alongside the way in which, however recovers magnificently by throwing off the shackles of expectation (to not point out, of constant morality). There are occasions when its story of a kindly apiarist and mandolin strummer, Amziah King (Matthew McConaughey), verges on outsider artwork — given its whizbang unfurling and rosy view of disquieting character turns — which solely makes it extra significant when it maintains an unwavering give attention to neighborhood.
In that vein, the movie is equally about Amziah’s foster daughter, a younger Choctaw woman named Kateri (Angelina LookingGlass), who returns to their rural Oklahoma city after years away, and slowly begins to really feel at dwelling. After establishing a wistful, folksy emotional core informed with the broadness of cleaning soap opera, The Rivals of Amziah King earns the appropriate to fly off the rails, because it additionally earns its viewers’s belief sufficient to know they will comply with.
What’s The Rivals of Amziah King about?
It is extremely acceptable that such scrumptious junk meals cinema opens within the dusty parking zone of a fried steak sandwich shack, the place a gaggle of musicians tunes up in preparation for the arrival of their ostensible chief. A cowboy boot hits the bottom because the digicam tilts up and divulges Amziah — bearded and bandanna’d, much like the film’s director — becoming a member of his troupe to steer a pleasant, impassioned bluegrass quantity.
The Rivals of Amziah King is as a lot about its rural setting as it’s about its rollicking, Simpsons-esque plot, which builds with detailed absurdity. Quickly after the film’s musical intro, Amziah — recognized to course of and harvest honey — is sought out by the native sheriff to seek the advice of on the origins of a number of recovered barrels of the sugary substance.
The film treats honey, its sale, and its manufacture with the identical somberness and gravity as Breaking Unhealthy does crystal meth. This strategy turns into much more amusing when Amziah’s makes an attempt to discern the barrels’ proprietor — with the assistance of some blue collar musicians in search of additional money — ends in a gory industrial accident, shot and edited with informal aptitude. This suggestions the film over right into a riotous slapstick comedy, whose premise turns into more and more harder to elucidate to every character Amziah encounters.
As Amziah recovers from the night’s insanity in a diner sales space at daybreak, one of many onlookers he runs into occurs to be Kateri, a Native teen who as soon as lived with him when he and his late spouse fostered weak youth, now working as a waitress. The belief places essentially the most loving smiles on each their faces. A lot of the film’s first half follows Amziah not solely reintroducing Kateri to the neighborhood however making her really feel part of it, regaling her with idiosyncratic tales via each speech and tune.
Mashable Prime Tales
The Rivals of Amziah King is a film about neighborhood.
The movie’s musical numbers are all diegetic, they usually all match inside the slim confines of what Amziah and his band are able to taking part in. Nevertheless, The Rivals of Amziah King has all of the power and heightened actuality of a conventional film musical, whether or not or not it technically is one. You may make the argument both means, however its songs show to be a significant dramatic venue for a way a lot the reluctant Kateri does or doesn’t really feel related to these round her, as Amziah playfully convinces her to hitch within the tune and dance.
His rustic Southern storytelling borders on folkloric, particularly how he ties bees and beekeeping into his nostalgic view of communal bonds. So, it follows that Kateri would discover belonging in his make use of. Throughout this primary hour, the film’s lack of overarching battle isn’t a hurdle, given its good-natured attract. Nevertheless, a sudden flip halfway via results in the disappearance of Amizah’s total bee colony, leaving Kateri as the middle of each the narrative and a vigilante investigation into these accountable.
As much as that time, Amziah, and the movie at massive, have framed the bees not solely as a metaphor for his or her city however an integral a part of it as nicely, by approaching labor as an act of mutual good. Each component of the film is geared in the direction of making certain its cloth feels collectivist and communal, even whereas its colourful particular person characters stand out, from Owen Teague’s keen fiddler, to Rob Morgan’s lawyer-pianist, to Cole Sprouse’s fast-food employee and tech sleuth. Maybe essentially the most lovable among the many merry supporting solid is Amziah’s buddy and beekeeping handyman performed by Scott Shepherd, whose slurred speech is initially impenetrable to outsiders. However because the movie goes on, each Kateria and the viewers start to know him extra clearly — as if we might been welcomed into the neighborhood.
The Rivals of Amziah King is full of the sort of sugary, “aww, shucks” goodness you might see McConaughey utilizing to launch a heartland political profession, however on the similar time, there’s nothing cynical about it. When the movie finally takes its midpoint flip, throughout which the bees disappear and Amziah is sidelined from the narrative, their absence is palpable. By this level, we perceive intuitively how tight-knit the bonds of this small city are, from their potlucks to their gatherings to observe musical performances, and something that hurts one in every of them finally ends up hurting all of them.
This detour comes with a couple of downsides, together with a visible language that does not instantly match the verve of its first half. Nevertheless, the impression of these preliminary scenes proceed to ripple and resonate, propelling The Rivals of Amziah King even throughout its much less partaking moments.
The Rivals of Amziah King is an audio-visual deal with.
Even when The Rivals of Amziah King shifts into dour territory, forcing Kateri to carry out bafflingly malicious actions, the movie’s communal justifications stay in the back of our minds. That is partly as a result of LookingGlass delivers such a honest, wide-eyed efficiency even when turning to ostensible evil — {that a} flip this ludicrous works is a marvel! — but it surely’s additionally owed to how unflinchingly the digicam captures each bodily and moral dimension.
The movie has no qualms about how harmful Kateri turns into throughout her revenge mission. Her actions aren’t violently excessive, however they exist within the shadows and have disturbing ripple results; at one level, she even considers poisoning a canine to get what she desires. And but, the digicam retains its adoration for her. Whereas this extra critical, simple second half slows down for a breather, the heroic aesthetic language it makes use of to seize LookingGlass seldom deviates from how Patterson shoots McConaughey in preliminary scenes, framing Kateri as a worthy non secular successor to Amziah.
There is a mythic high quality to each lead characters, owed to each delicate push-ins, in addition to overt visible swings like speed-ramping and slow-motion throughout musical scenes, in addition to nonetheless snapshots throughout energetic frolic. Every visible element stands out, from the feel of meals to the stomping of shoes across the desk to create rhythm — even the arhythmic sound Amziah’s marriage ceremony ring makes when he faucets it on the desk, drawing consideration to a void in his life. The movie is in a state of perpetual movement and fixed transformation.
Collectively, all these moments make The Rivals of Amziah King really feel prefer it’s floating on air. All of the whereas, it takes you with it, making you’re feeling such as you’re being lifted out of your seat, because of the excessive of a riotously humorous, expertly sappy musical melodrama that borrows from the legendary image-making of conventional Westerns, however creates one thing wholly new.
The Rivals of Amziah King was reviewed out of its world premiere at 2025 SXSW.
