Young teen and ex-rodeo star become unlikely companions in a moving, accomplished drama.
It’s easy to oversell Bull, a coming-of-age story set in a hardscrabble world where poverty is the dominant factor in shaping lives. But there’s a core of sincerity to the movie, as well as empathy with its downtrodden leads. It’s a place and people worth knowing.
The debut feature from Annie Silverstein, Bull bears the influence of films that came before: Leave No Trace, The Rider, Beasts of the Southern Wild, perhaps Winter’s Bone and the documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening. Even Silverstein’s earlier short, Skunk, covers similar territory. Skunk won an award at Cannes, where Bull screened in the Un Certain Regard section this year.
Fourteen-year-old Kris (Amber Havard) is first seen pulling her pet dog away from a chicken’s carcass, stolen from her neighbor Abe Turner’s (Rob Morgan) coop. Morgan lives with her younger sister Chance (Keira Bennett) and her grandmother (Keeli Wheeler). Her mother Janis (Sara Albright) is in jail.
Essentially on her own, Kris is a step away from any number of disasters, egged on by peers hooked on drugs and computer games and not quite aware of her misplaced regard for her mother’s bravado. Kris’s guarded expressions, her quizzical stares and emotionless responses, are protection for a young teen trying to believe she won’t be hurt yet again.
Silverstein and cinematographer Shabier Kirchner capture some of the pleasures of childhood — riding a bike, visiting a swimming hole — but also immerse viewers in a dirt-poor world of cheap houses, worn-out cars, dirty parking lots. That’s before the story opens up into Turner’s world. A fifty-ish African-American, he is an ex-rodeo star nursing wounds and grievances, mostly about his age. The rodeo scenes are intense and frightening, even with their moments of beauty.
Alone and defiant, Turner’s another lost soul who needs rescuing. Thankfully, Silverstein isn’t interested in offering life lessons or redemption. Bull is too nuanced to ignore the complexities Turner and Kris face.
The script, by Silverstein and her partner Johnny McAllister, has plot and pacing issues. The movie can slow to a crawl while its leads ponder moments that feel lifted from other films. And frankly, you’ve seen damaged characters like this before. But Silverstein’s choices are honest ones, and her approach to the material never feels forced or insincere.
The uniformly strong actors make good use of the script’s terse dialogue, although the sound is a bit muddy at times. Bull doesn’t reach the emotions of a film like The Rider, and it doesn’t have the intellectual rigor of Leave No Trace.
But Silverstein makes a strong case that these people have something worthwhile to say to viewers. There is a grace and tenderness to the movie that are hard to resist.
