Sandra Guidry (Thandiwe Newton), a Black professor, lives and works in a rural college town In the snowy wilderness of the American West. She's grieving her recently-deceased mother, for whom she'd served as primary caretaker. On the day of the burial, Sandra discovers a mysterious red truck parked in her driveway. She soon learns it belongs to a pair of local hunters seeking to enter the forest behind her house. Sandra turns them away politely but firmly -- her experience tells her these are not the sort of men to welcome freely into her world. But they won't take no for an answer, and soon Sandra finds herself drawn into an escalating battle of wills that puts her most deeply-held values to the test.
God's Country - Sundance Film Review 2022
Brian Tallerico - rogerebert.com
"...that’s certainly how Sandra (Newton) feels in the excellent “God’s Country,” one of this Sundance’s best films. She’s exhausted at the systems that have failed around her. And she knows a thing or two about systems, having been both a New Orleans police officer and now a professor at a college in a very different climate, a cold, mountainous region. Sandra moved there with her mother after Hurricane Katrina, and mom has just passed away as the film opens, dropping Sandra into an even darker place in which she has no one to consider but herself. When two hunters choose to park on her property, she politely asks them not to do so. After they refuse, a series of escalating aggressions turn “God’s Country” into a slow-motion crash. Unlike some thrillers, there’s never really a sense that Julian Higgins’ debut could end with reconciliation. It feels like that’s harder than ever in 2022, maybe even impossible." To read the full review please CLICK HERE.
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