“National Anthem” is a song by Lana Del Rey in film form

This article was originally published on March 13, 2023 as part of the South By Southwest Film Festival. We are now republishing it, in a timely manner National anthem‘s cinema release.

You’ve heard of the horse girl, but Hollywood has finally found its typical horse boy and his name is Charlie Plummer. (Apologies to Jeremy Irvine.) In Lean on PeteAndrew Haigh’s sensitive 2018 drama, Plummer played a soft-spoken Oregon teenager who escapes his cramped home life when he finds work and a sense of community at a local racetrack. The new film National anthemwhich premiered Friday at South by Southwest, can be described similarly, except that Plummer is a 21-year-old from rural New Mexico and the community he finds happens to be a gay rodeo enclave.

Plummer never actually rides a horse in Lean on Petebut these noble mammals and the people who care for them make independence seem attainable. He is thrown off the first horse he mounts, National anthembut what really matters exists beyond the paddock gates: a makeshift family that embraces Plummer’s gentle beanstalk in a way his oft-absent mother (Robin Lively) cannot. The film is about outcasts reviving the customs of the American West, bringing gender-neutral glamour to a landscape that traditionally attracts rough men. One of the most beautiful tracks this year’s SXSW lineup has to offer is a Lana Del Rey song in film form, even if the Lana number of the same name doesn’t appear. (The excellent soundtrack does, however, feature Perfume Genius, Angel Olsen and Mazzy Star.)

National anthem is the debut of Luke Gilford, a 36-year-old photographer and filmmaker who published a monograph of the same name in 2020 documenting queer rodeo life in New Mexico, Texas, California, and elsewhere. His most striking image is of two men on a horse wearing only cowboy hats—as compelling a thesis as any. In addition to magazine shoots with Andrew Garfield, Lil Nas X, and Jane Fonda, Gilford has directed music videos for Troye Sivan, Kesha, and Blood Orange. Now he’s likely to become a hot indie wunderkind, descended from the likes of Haigh, Ira Sachs, Andrea Arnold, and Chloé Zhao. Gilford’s father was a rodeo champion in Colorado, and the iconography he grew up with inspired his lush cinematic palette.

Gilford chose a suitable muse in Plummer, whose unassuming eyes thirst for experience. All the money in the world The actor plays Dylan, a construction worker who has to take care of his cute little brother (Joey DeLeon) while his mother goes out at night. Dylan’s coworkers call him “pretty boy” and he doesn’t have many friends until he takes a job as a handyman on a ranch that is christened House of Splendor. There, Dylan meets Sky (Eve Lindley, recently seen in brothers And Reports from elsewhere), a horseman who has a romantic relationship with the brooding chief of the ranch (The Conners Rene Rosado), but takes an immediate liking to Dylan. Sky introduces him to drag and psychedelic mushrooms, gives him a second home, and encourages Dylan in his plan to buy an RV so he can travel the country.

Rodeos and cowboy culture have recently been of great fascination to arthouse filmmakers. National anthem joins Zhao’s The driverJane Campion The power of the dogand Jacques Audiards The Sisters Brothers in the analysis of masculinity, which is often seen as inherent to the landscapes of the Western genre. The drama by Idris Elbra Concrete CowboyMeanwhile, examined gentrification through the lens of black wranglers in Philadelphia. This film used the real Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club as inspiration and National anthemThe end credits thank the International Gay Rodeo Association, which photographed Gilford for his book.

National anthem gives familiar coming-of-age beats a fresh backdrop. The gender identity and sexuality of most characters are undefined, making the House of Splendor a sanctuary where no one serves as an alibi in the name of representation. Gilford and his cinematographer Katelin Arizmendi (Swallow), capture emotion in intimate close-ups and use painterly wide shots to convey a vivid sense of place. Splendor is an unconventional Arcadia in the middle of the desert, set apart from the mainstream in an act of defiance that needs little explanation. And yet their utopia is no fantasy – here, too, hearts break.

This is just one chapter in Dylan’s biography. The rest of his life follows after National anthem fades to black. When a nonbinary drag resident (Mason Alexander Park) offers him permanent residency at Splendor, Dylan is smart enough to say he’s just passing through. He’s never felt like he belongs before, and we have a feeling he’ll be searching for more of that feeling in his 20s. Dylan’s new friends, bruised but hardly broken, have already found each other. Now it’s his turn.