Cowboys feels like exactly the sort of film people should think of when they hear the words ‘Modern Western’. Yes, No Country For Old Men, Hell or High Water and Sicario are all well and good but the only thing modern about them is the setting (and not even that in the 1980-set No Country…). Cowboys, on the other hand, feels like the purest attempt to portray the stories and trappings of the Western genre into the complicated reality of 2021.
Directed by Anna Kerrigan, the film sees father Troy (Steve Zahn) set off with his trans son Joe (Sasha Knight) into the vast wilderness of Montana, headed for the Canadian border. Back home it transpires that the two are on the run from mother Sally (Jillian Bell) who has refused to accept Joe’s identity and has called the police in to retrieved her effectively kidnapped child. What follows is a meditative journey across glorious landscape as Troy and Joe attempt to survive the wild and evade capture by the pursuing Detective Faith Erikson (Ann Dowd). Through flashbacks we also see the beginnings of Joe’s transition and the destruction of her parent’s relationship which has placed them on this path.
It is newcomer Lane though who does a lot of the film’s heavy-lifting, commendably so as such a young actor. Convincingly portraying the awkwardness of Joe attempting to fill the role of the cis-girl her mother so badly wants him to be. As he begins to lose his femininity and understand his own identity it feels genuine and understated. The conviction behind Lane’s performance carries through as the relationship between Troy and Joe is tested out in the wild. With Joe forced to come to terms with the flawed man his father is, even as he fights for Joe so earnestly. The chemistry between him and the ever-lovable Zahn sells a relationship built on warmth and a genuine desire to understand each other.
More than anything though, Cowboys is an inescapably majestic film. The backdrop of Montana’s mountains feed the sense of beauty and adventure inherent to its two leads. Even at its darkest, both thematically and aesthetically, the film never loses its lightness of touch. That’s not to say it’s without tension, Troy and Joe’s journey is constantly filled with danger and risk of capture. However, it all serves to liven up the pacing and at no point do any of the characters come across as malicious. Like all great Modern Westerns this is not a film of archetypes but real human beings, doing what they think is best. This does have the result of the film seeming to sugar-coat the realities of what trans people face however it’s fitting with the Western homage the film seeks to make.