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Writer-director Anna Kerrigan’s western-tinged “Cowboys” feels like the right movie at the right time. This tough and tender tale, which pits big-hearted, bipolar Dad Troy (an excellent Steve Zahn), and his 11-year-old transgender son, Joe (newcomer Sasha Knight), against an insulated world of traditional values and expectations, should grip, move and surprise viewers in equal measure.
The film, set in present-day Montana, effectively uses flashbacks to outline the patchy relationship between the spirited, impulsive Troy; his more pragmatic wife, Sally (Jillian Bell); and their angelic child, who believes he was born in the wrong body and yearns to present as his true self.