Saddle up for an enlightening ride in ‘Anthem’
For a cliched coming-of-age tale, “National Anthem” has a lot going for it in its ability to mainstream what’s called queer rodeo and the members of the LGBTQ+ community who use it to redefine our concept of a Western hero.
It also marks the directing debut of Luke Gilford, who drew his inspiration from the images he captured for a photography monograph sharing its title with a film that proudly celebrates the power of discovering and accepting your true self.
His surrogate is Charlie Plummer, an androgynous actor adeptly portraying a cipher rife with the desire to establish himself as something more than a “pretty boy” firmly under the thumb of his hard-partying single mom (Robyn Lively of “Doogie Howser” fame). Although he often underplays to distraction the role of Dylan, a 21-year-old surrogate parent to his shamefully neglected little brother (Joey DeLeon), Plummer possesses the precise amount of wide-eyed innocence to sell the idea of a man young enough to be impressionable, but old enough to know he’s doomed to a life of subservience if circumstances don’t improve fast.
Fate, perhaps the oldest of movie tropes, steps in when Dylan, a day laborer, is selected by Pepe (Rene Rosado) to sign on as a hired hand at the boss man’s House of Splendor ranch, an LGBTQ+ haven nestled in the majesty of the New Mexican desert. At first, you fear Dylan, slight and pale, isn’t up to the task of toting heavy hay bales and posting fences. But he surprises us, and Pepe, with his willingness to work hard and without complaint.
He also catches the roving eye of the lovely Sky (Eve Lindley), Pepe’s transgender partner at the ranch and in the sack. It’s never verbally expressed, but her come-hither looks suggest this certified femme fatale can’t wait to make this boy a man. Dylan’s dreamy-eyed response makes clear he feels very much the same.
Given this is essentially a coming-of-age tale, you can practically predict every plot point that ensues. But Gilford, who wrote the script with David Largman Murray and Kevin Best, understands he needs an added spark to differentiate his film from the rest. It’s there in how Dylan’s free-spirited co-workers immediately embrace the neophyte as one of their own, providing him the family he/s longed for.
Haters may accuse the movie of glorifying grooming, especially when Dylan’s prepubescent brother also falls under the group’s spell. But open-minded folks are likely to draw inspiration from the myriad ways these “outsiders” fearlessly explore the meaning of identity. To Dylan, it’s dressing up and performing in drag, a pursuit Plummer renders utterly convincing.
What’s disappointing is that there isn’t more exposure to the fascinating phenomenon of queer rodeo, a recreation in which Dylan also engages by daringly mounting another type of untamed male, a bucking bull. We’re afforded glimpses at these colorful affairs where all inhibitions are discarded. But those flashes are so spirited and fun, that you crave seeing more of the performers and spectators unabashedly letting their freak flags fly. These are the movie’s most invigorating moments.
Instead, we’re subjected to the all-too-familiar beats of Dylan clashing with his disapproving mother and falling for Sky, eventually realizing that their brief affair can only end in heartbreak. Heck, Sky and Dylan aren’t even the most intriguing pair. That would be Dylan and Carrie (Mason Alexander Park), the effervescent drag queen who takes Dylan under his wing and teaches him not just the ropes but how to negotiate a life of being different. I found their relationship far more involving than that of Dylan and Sky. But that doesn’t detract from the sensational performance by Lindley. Her Sky is sexy, beautiful (check out that mane of hair!) and for a young woman, enormously savvy about the endless possibilities of love in all its facets.
Ironically, the film’s dullest star is Plummer. After a while, his naivete begins to wear thin, particularly when Dylan finds himself in the middle of a love triangle we’re asked to believe he never saw emerging. I also didn’t buy the film’s clunky ending in which every loose end and frayed relationship is neatly mended. Real life is messy, and the closing scenes should have reflected that. But then Gilford, a photographer by trade, is entering a new medium. His future is promising, though. Keep an eye on him. I sense this won’t be his last rodeo.
Movie review
National Anthem
Rated: R for sexual content, graphic nudity, language and some drug use
Cast: Charlie Plummer, Eve Lindley, Mason Alexander Park, Rene Rosado and Robyn Lively
Director: Luke Gilford
Writers: David Largman Murray, Kevin Best and Luke Gilford
Runtime: 99 minutes
Where: In theaters July 12 before expanding July 19
Grade: B
