Cowboys: Questions of identity in macho America
Film review: Strong performances carry this good-hearted road movie
Film Title: Cowboys
Genre: Drama
Anna Kerrigan makes some admirable choices in her treatment of a child going through gender transition – a hot topic if ever there was one. It is Sally (Jillian Bell), the hard-working, caring mother, who wonders if young Joe (Sasha Knight) might not just be playing out. Who wouldn’t want to become a man in this patriarchal environment? “I don’t let her go out of the house like that,” she says of her “tomboy”, who has taken to jeans and cowboy hats. It is deadbeat dad Troy (Steve Zahn), a drunk with a line in hopeless fantasy, who takes the child’s aspirations seriously. Joe feels as if an alien has dumped him in a girl’s body. Not much at home in the world himself, Troy makes a connection that Sally at first can’t manage.
Cowboys was made during the twilight of Donald Trumpâs presidency, which saw the dialling back of health protections for trans people and a military ban, since overturned by Joe Biden. Right-wing commentators during the Trump era dedicated many hours to mocking transgender people, with trans kids being weaponised as evidence that the âtrans agendaâ has gone âtoo farâ, and that children are incapable of identifying as anything other than their assigned gender at birth.
In this context, Anna Kerriganâs Cowboys â in which Troy (Steve Zahn) goes on the run with his young trans son Joe (Sasha Knight) through rural Montana, a solid Republican state â stands as a forceful bid for tolerance and acceptance. The two males hope to cross over to Canada, a migration many Americans pledged to make following the election of Donald Trump in 2016, seeing the country as a liberal haven compared to the bigotry associated with Trumpism. Flashbacks show how Tro
Steve Zahn and Sasha Knight star in Cowboys Damon Smith
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COWBOYS (Cert 15, 85 mins, Blue Finch Film Releasing, available from May 7 on Amazon Prime Video/BT TV Store/iTunes/Sky Store/TalkTalk TV Store and other download and streaming services, Drama)
FOLLOWING screenings at BFI Flare, Glasgow Film Festival and Dublin International Film Festival, Anna Kerrigan s poignant drama saddles up for an extended canter in our homes.
Troy (Steve Zahn) heads into the northern Rockies with his 11-year-old transgender son Joe (Sasha Knight), who is obsessed with cowboys and the great outdoors. Father and boy relish the beauty of their surroundings and the opportunity to eat and sleep beneath the stars.
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