Photo courtesy of Focus Features
The happiness of the Blackledge family on their Montana ranch is abruptly upended by the death of their son James. The daughter-in-law of George and Margaret Blackledge (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane), Lorna (Kayli Carter), wastes no time before remarrying. She has no idea what trouble lies ahead.
Adapted from Larry Watson’s novel by writer-director Thomas Bezucha, Let Him Go is a Kennedy-era drama about the steps taken to free an abused woman trapped in terror. Margaret observes from afar as Lorna is struck in the face (in public) by her new husband, Donnie Weboy (Will Brittain). Donnie’s violent behavior is also threatening to his 3-year old stepson, Jimmy. True to the early ‘60s, Margaret isn’t sure at first what to do or how to talk about what she saw. She’s focused on rescuing her grandson and by the time she resolves to confront Donnie and Lorna, it’s too late. Donnie has moved his wife and the child back to his homeland in the barren North Dakota back country.
Let Him Go is carried in large part by the performances of Costner and Lane. George embodies old-fashioned American manhood as a guy who speaks little, keeps his thoughts locked up and expresses himself in deeds, not words. Margaret is the outgoing half of the couple who tends, like the old Carter Family song, to look the sunny side of life until she arrives in a place that has seen little sunlight.
Her determination and naivete launches the story’s odyssey aspect as she sets forth with her initially reluctant husband to find Lorna and Jimmy. The tension mounts slowly on their drive through desolate country as they begin to guess that Donnie’s family are the baddest folks in the badlands, the fruit of bitter roots. The Weboys’ matriarch is Margaret’s dark-tempered counterpart, Blanche (Lesley Manville), whose spirit was steeled in ancestral hardships on the plains. Her malice is unconcealed by her loose mask of affability.
In the final hour, Let Him Go turns into a blood feud. Out of fear, Lorna has acquiesced to her brutal husband and his violent, criminally minded clan. How to save her? The film’s power would have been enhanced if the director canned the conventional musical score, alternately saccharine and terror-minded, and allowed the wholehearted performances and bleak landscape to speak for themselves. Let Him Go is a western set in more recent times, a drama in a place where the values of a civil society are challenged by outlaws who bow to nothing but force.
Let Him Go’s theatrical release is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 6.
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