BeBraveMorvern’s review published on Letterboxd:
This isn’t just special because it’s from a non-binary Two-Spirit Mi’kmaq filmmaker, with the First Nations characters all played by First Nations actors. It’s also a vibrant take on classic genres, with a specificity that keeps it feeling honest and fully character-driven.
It’s a tough, humane coming-of-age road-trip movie about family and tribal legacies. In swift, clear strokes, writer-director Bretten Hannam establishes the fully justified anger of his teenage protagonist, Link. It leaves the movie plenty of space for Link to convincingly evolve as he meets other Indigenous characters in his travels.
A couple of times, Link goes quiet to stare at a dead animal. Hannam doesn’t hit these beats hard; Link just seems to register a sense of identification. It’s a touching, subtle, revealing detail.
It’s one example of the movie’s rough sensuality; it doesn’t flinch at the blood-caked fur, or elsewhere, at the dust and sweat of a day’s hike, or bruises that are slow to heal. On the flip side, Hannam finds lyrical moments, with soft focus in tall grass and romantic lighting on a moonlight swim. He makes you feel Link’s pain, and posits it in the natural world, so your heart is with him for his deliverance.
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