Alarm bells start ringing very early on in Susanna White’s biopic of 19th century painter Catherine Weldon, who travelled to Dakota to paint the portrait of Sioux Chief Sitting Bull and grew sensitive to the plight of the Lakota people and their struggle over land rights. An early soothing voiceover, accompanied by languorous guitar plucking, states that “No portrait of the great chief Sitting Bull exists in any of our public galleries – I intend to rectify the situation”. And sadly, all early fears of a white saviour narrative are soon confirmed.
It’s a well-shot period piece that wears its noble intentions on its sleeves but is bogged down by an oversimplified script which gratingly panders to modern liberal ideals, with a marketable and romance-infused story preferred over historical accuracies. The always-excellent Jessica Chastain and Michael Greyeyes are faultless in respectively portraying Weldon and Sitting Bull, battling through over-earnest lines of dialogue with aplomb. But their efforts are ultimately in vain.
There’s a more ambitious film to be made about the events that lead to the Wounded Knee massacre and the treatment of the Sioux tribe at the hands of the federal army, and while there are some grace notes along the way, Woman Walks Ahead won’t linger in the mind. If you’re looking for a female-led western, revisit Tommy Lee Jones’ underrated The Homesman; for a more compelling recent exploration of the treatment of Native Americans, seek out Scott Cooper’s Hostiles.
Woman Walks Ahead | Directed by Susanna White (US 2018) with Jessica Chastain, Michael Greyeyes, Sam Rockwell. Starts July 5.
Check our OV search engine for showtimes.