Where 2017 movies had a weird preoccupation with deer (Get Out, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Killing of a Sacred Deer… sort of), the hot animal accessory for 2018 movies is apparently horses. There’s Lean on Pete, The Rider, and now, A24’s Woman Walks Ahead, starring Jessica Chastain and equine. Based on a true story, the Susanna White-directed period piece follows portrait artist Catherine Weldon as she travels from New York to North Dakota to paint Chief Sitting Bull. Along the way, she meets aggrieved Colonel Silas Grove, played by Sam Rockwell in his first starring role since winning an Oscar for Three Billboards. But enough about deer. Horses!
Here’s the official plot synopsis.
Woman Walks Ahead tells the story of Catherine Weldon (Jessica Chastain), a widowed artist from New York who, in the 1880s, traveled alone to North Dakota to paint a portrait of Chief Sitting Bull (Michael Greyeyes). Her arrival at Standing Rock is welcomed with open hostility by a US Army officer (Sam Rockwell), who has stationed troops around the Lakota reservation to undermine Native American claims to the land. As Catherine and Sitting Bull grow closer, and as their friendship — and his life — are threatened by imperious government forces, Catherine must contend with the violence that underlies her position.
Woman Walks Ahead premieres on DIRECTV May 31 and in theaters June 29.
