Written and directed by Lyle Mitchell Corbine, Jr.
Starring Michael Greyeyes, Phoenix Wilson, Kate Bosworth, Chaske Spencer
Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes
In select theaters and on demand September 3

by Alex Rudolph, Staff Writer

Makwa (Phoenix Wilson) is a truly troubled Native American kid who causes problems at his Christian school. He loves TV, his dad's an abusive asshole and his mother is terminally too tired to do anything. We see Makwa get chewed out by his father, but the extent of the violence is revealed passively. Makwa goes to school with a few bruises and in the next scene his entire face has been battered, and then the next time we see him, one of his eyes has been swollen shut. Wild Indian, the debut feature from writer-director Lyle Mitchell Corbine, Jr., is honest about trauma but deals with actual moments of physical violence at a remove. It's a striking film that uses its bold style to affect you deeper than it could have as a less considered, artful experience.

That elliptical take on violence hits hardest early on, when Makwa and his friend Teddo (Julian Gopal) accidentally define the next few decades of each other's lives. Makwa is jealous of a classmate who was dating a girl he likes, in that small way that children can think they're dating. One afternoon, Makwa shoots the classmate in the head. We see Makwa pull the trigger and then the classmate is on the ground, dead. The impact is so small that you wonder, at first, whether anybody has actually been killed, or if this is all in Makwa's head. Teddo, the lone witness to the crime, is sworn to secrecy.

The phrase people sometimes use to describe film moments like this is "dreamy." By not showing the bullet's impact, blood, etc., the audience isn't hit as viscerally by the action. But that isn't true in Wild Indian. If anything, the whole movie is dreamy, and then its moments of violence are a bucket of cold water. You drift along and then realize you really have just watched one character murder another in cold blood.

Jumping into the future, Makwa, now played by Michael Greyeyes, lives in California. He goes by "Michael" now, plays golf, and is married to a white woman (Kate Bosworth), who looks not unlike a grown version of the little girl he had a crush on 30 years earlier. Michael has to figure out where his hair fits into his personal brand. The only evidence Michael was once Makwa is a spent shell casing he plays with and contemplates in private.

Teddo, now played by Chaske Spencer, goes by Ted-O, his name de-anglicized almost as much as Michael's has gone in the other direction. Ted-O gets out of prison for an unrelated incident and tries to pick up the pieces. He's much less culpable in the boy's death than Makwa/Michael, but it clearly weighs on him more. Whatever downward spiral led to his sentencing is, like almost every act of violence in Wild Indian, on the viewer to infer. This all leads to a confrontation with Michael that I've had trouble getting out of my head. We see Michael let his temper loose (and then go to pray in a Christian church), so we know his rage hasn't gone anywhere. He's become more respectable, but behind closed doors he's still the same damaged kid lashing out at anyone he thinks is in his way.

And so Ted-O comes to Michael for some closure. He's got a gun, but really he just wants Michael to admit something happened in the forest three decades earlier. Reminded of his crime, or, perhaps more importantly, reminded another person (Ted-O) knows of his crime, Michael unloads on an old friend, "Look what I made of myself. Do I look like the same person?" It's the ultimate capitalist lie: I have a nice house, so I'm better now, and how dare you confront me with a dumb mistake I made when I was poor. The mask doesn't slip so much as it's ripped off and thrown away, and another needlessly brutal conflict breaks out. It's one of two violent moments the camera doesn't shy away from, and I won't ruin it here, but will note that it's pretty tame by R-rated movie standards. The violence isn't showy, it doesn't luxuriate in gore as a cheap shortcut to making you uncomfortable. The violence stays with you because of what's behind it and not, as it does in so many movies, because it's gratuitous.

Poverty is a minor theme in every film and book I've seen created by an American Indian person. The struggle to even have ambition on a rez is a real, tactile thing. This is probably the first film I've encountered where a Native character has a comfortable level of wealth. When you realize that Michael’s wealth is a huge part of his problem, it's another sinking feeling in a movie of sinking feelings. Whatever Makwa had to do to become Michael is as discomfiting as the physical violence Corbine dances around.

I like the way Phoenix Wilson, as the young version of Makwa, speaks. It's softer than you'd expect. He's so angry, but this is what his body can communicate. His voice can only get so close to a bellow. Michael Greyeyes' anger as adult Makwa is incredible in the literal sense. You cannot believe this person who has so much is still 90% boiling rage. Corbine often holds the camera on Greyeyes' face in tense scenes so we can watch how he stiffens up, every muscle tensing until he looks like a different person. His smiles seem genuine, but then his sneer comes out and it feels like it was hidden there the entire time. Every actor in Wild Indian feels created to express their part of the script.

I'll say this, though-- I have no idea what Jesse Eisenberg is doing in this movie as Michael's awkward co-worker.  Eisenberg, an executive producer on the project, shows up for all of five minutes to jump in and say "Hey, good job, bud" to the main character two or three times. Bosworth is a big name, too, but she has more to do. It's distracting. But if Eisenberg's name draws somebody to Wild Indian, that's a good thing. I'm fine being distracted by a famous actor being a glorified extra if it means somebody sees his face on the poster and decides the movie is worth checking out. If that's a bait and switch and it's a little successful, good. I want you to watch Wild Indian.