National Anthem

The majority of LGBTQ stories that make it to the screen involve the cities or suburbs in some way. Many never leave, such as I Saw the TV Glow. But those which do are still centered around an urban/suburban living situation. Midnight Cowboy and The People's Joker both feature characters who start their lives in rural America, but quickly move to the city to find themselves. Drive-Away Dolls mostly takes place on a road trip, while Priscilla, Queen of the Desert finds the gay drag queen protagonists journeying between cities through the Australian Outback.

Maybe that's why the trailer for National Anthem, the debut feature from Luke Gilford, grabbed me. It's full of gorgeous landscapes and scenes oft associated with the rugged and romanticized masculinity of the former "wild frontier": cowboys and rodeos and American flags. Which means the very existence of the House of Splendor is subversive, as a ranch whose helpers are exclusively out and proud trans women and men whose sexuality is quite fluid, where Dylan (Charlie Plummer) ends up spending more and more of his time. That isn't to imply the presence of queer people in such places is anything new in media (or real-life). Cowboy imagery has long been popular in gay culture and stories: the aforementioned Midnight Cowboy, 2005's Brokeback Mountain, and 2022's The Power of the Dog are but a few examples. The same ideas apply to closeted trans woman hiding out as cowboys to divert uncomfortable questions about their masculinity, although there is less mainstream media depicting their stories. So Dylan's stark isolation and alienation while doing odd jobs as a day laborer unfortunately puts him in good company, imbuing his interactions on the ranch with extra tension. A tension we come to understand a bit more when his mother Fiona (Robyn Lively) comments on the ranch having "one of those flags".

This is a movie whose narrative is focused on the struggle and exuberance of self-discovery, of navigating what those revelations mean at the same time as new relationships and sexual experiences. While there are allusions to strife in the personal history of a few of the women, and we see the difficulty Fiona's inability to care for her pre-teen son Cassidy (Joey DeLeon) causes as Dylan is forced to pick up the slack, the story is emphatically not built around tragedy. That being said, in a huge credit to Plummer, you can feel how Dylan's immediate embrace of this new community and of each new experience is partially driven by how repressed he was before now. There's a sadness when you notice that the moment he steps onto the ranch he smiles in a way that he never does anywhere else, save for when he ran into the ranch's crew at some big-box store.

The driving function of the story is his messy relationship with Sky (Eve Lindley), a ranch-hand and resident at House of Splendor who's also in an open relationship with its owner Pepe (Rene Rosado). There are ways in which she could be construed as a manic pixie dream girl: she catches Dylan's eye immediately when he arrives, and is responsible for introducing him to a world and perspective he never knew was attainable. She drags him out of his shell at various points, and their romance develops quickly and very intensely. Yet it never feels like she's defined by him in the least. While she does care about him and his well-being, as she can see his pain and recognizes it from her own life, their intimacy is never anything more than some fun for her, and she says as such. She enjoys being desired, and the way it spurs Pepe to be a bit overprotective seems to draw them closer, despite it putting her off in the moment. She never sets her life by him nor alters her plans, just encourages him to join them.

All of which comes through brilliantly in Lindley's performance. As much as Plummer is incredible and delivers one of the best scenes of the year (set to Melissa Etheridge's "I'm the Only One"), Lindley is positively electric throughout. It's the kind of confident, effortless performance you might expect from a seasoned actor, despite her only having a handful of feature and TV credits to her name (although one was the main cast of Dispatches from Elsewhere). She commands the screen through facial performance in every single scene she's in, giving you a window into the complications of her thought process at each moment, despite the movie being told from Dylan's perspective. It's a shame movies like this are so often overlooked come awards time, because there's no question she deserves to be in the conversation.

The transformation and love between the characters is what makes this story so powerful. There's no malice, even as emotions periodically get riled up and people throw verbal barbs. These intense emotions are navigated, sometimes by discussion, sometimes by taking space, but they all arrive at the place they need to. As the story progresses, Carrie (Mason Alexander Park) emerges as the grounded, emotionally mature center looking out for everyone on the ranch. As such, they take it upon themself to go on walks with Dylan and chat with him as he struggles to find his place in this community, creating a strong bond between them. The way Park exudes such warmth and compassion while not shying away from difficult truths that Dylan needs to hear and still having fun all the while make them stand out both as an actor and as a character. Rarely has someone appeared so utterly comfortable in their own skin across a variety of situations.

What's maybe the most beautiful element is how Dylan never stops growing or changing. So many movies like this chronicle how our protagonist finds their people and ends up in a tug of war with their previous life, eventually resolving the only way that plot line can, with them relinquishing what came before. But Dylan's prior life isn't trying all that hard to reclaim him, nor is he all that conflicted. Which paradoxically allows him to hold more loosely to this adopted family, saving him the pain that could result from being too prescriptive about their place in his life. We get to watch as Dylan instead sees this as part of his journey, working towards the goals which best serve him.

He may have finally found his people, but he still must define for himself the place he needs to be.