Director Luke Gilford’s first feature-length work (after some shorts and music videos) shares aesthetic genetic material with his photographic book and exhibition of the same name. Both the photos and this drama unfurl in a queer rodeo subculture, and in the case of the film, mostly at a ranch somewhere in the American southwest where a gaggle of LGBTQ+ folks ride and train horses, ride bulls and put on drag shows. Young Dylan (Charlie Plummer, best known for playing a kidnapped John Paul Getty III in All the Money in the World) is a seemingly straight local working-class guy who lives with his alcoholic mother (Robyn Lively) and little brother Cassidy (Joey DeLeon). One day, he gets hired by the ranch’s jefe Pepe (Rene Rosado), shifting hay bales for cash. When Dylan lays eyes on slinky transwoman Sky (Eve Lindley) he’s immediately thunderstruck with love, and it seems Sky has taken a shine to him too.
The whole middle act offers up a kind of queer Eden, all sequins and cowboy boots, where everyone microdoses on mushrooms and coalesces into a polymorphous puppy pile of pleasure. Dylan finally gets it on with Sky – and Pepe – in a hot threesome scene. It’s around that point that it all starts to seem a little too good to be true, and you have to wonder at the group’s ability to avoid homophobia and transphobia given this is still the American south – not to mention the rivalries and jealousies that often bedevil open relationships.
Sure enough, Pepe starts feeling a little jealous of Sky and Dylan’s developing feelings, and Dylan’s mom doesn’t take it well when he brings Cassidy home in a dress one night. The drama sputters and fails to catch fire; it’s as if Gilford is far less interested in kindling things and prefers to just look at his pretty cast in a variety of lighting schemes from stark noontime sunglare to the golden hues of magic hour. That said, the toothsome cast is well worth watching, especially Plummer with his nervous smile and the incandescent Lindley.
• National Anthem is on digital platforms from 9 December.
