Thandiwe Newton in God’s Country (IFC FIlms)

In this quiet psychological thriller set in rural Montana, Thandiwe Newton plays a university professor who has recently buried her mother and is suffused with grief. Sandra, a loner, lives far from town, and becomes perturbed when a red truck is parked in her driveway. It turns out to belong to two brothers, Nathan (Joris Jarsky) and Samuel (Jefferson White), who have been hunting in the area all their lives. When her request to have them not park on her property is rebuffed, she has their car towed, which results in an arrow shot through a window as retaliation. The local deputy, Gus Wolf (Jeremy Bobb, in a lovely, understated performance), seems disinclined to pursue Sandra’s complaint, mentioning he’s the only law enforcement for 300 miles. Events, of course, escalate, but with predictable results.

Writer/director Julian Higgins, adapting a James Lee Burke short story, builds tension slowly and unspools the narrative with a lackadaisical pace. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of character building in the slow spots. However, there are plenty of beautiful shots of the landscape and of Sandra’s gorgeous home, as well as her jogging, making tea, and playing with her dog, with occasional interruptions of interpersonal dialogue. Higgins, though, has a lot on his mind. He is taking on White supremacy, patriarchy, and how broken systems perpetuate violence, but the results are mixed. It’s a lot to heap onto what eventually becomes a revenge tale.

Newton, however, gives a wonderful, coiled performance of a woman clearly filled with the pain of decades of dealing with microaggressions and flat-out aggressions. The rest of the performances are decent enough but mostly comprise of cardboard villains, particularly the younger brother, Samuel (White, so good in Yellowstone), as a leering sociopath, and Sandra’s boss (Kai Lennox), the chair of her department. The only other character with anything resembling a backstory is Gus, who honestly reaches out to Sandra, yet after a terse scene where Sandra discloses her background and then storms out, Gus simply disappears from the film.

Yet there are good scenes dotted throughout: Sandra follows Nathan to his church, and they have an exchange about overbearing parents. They seem to be connecting, but when Nathan’s mother, the church organist, eyes Nathan talking to Sandra, he stands up abruptly and says, “You have to leave.” We know exactly what’s going on, and it pierces and stings. Another excellent scene is where Gus and Sandra confront Samuel at his job at a Christmas tree farm. Workers come out with masks on and wielding chainsaws and taunting Gus. Sandra manages to defuse the situation, which gets Gus thinking there is more to Sandra than she lets on.

These moments, though, are few and far between. Mostly there is symbolism that is way too overt: a deer and her fawn keep popping up on Sandra’s jogs. There is the sound of thunder and rain and the images of rain leaking down and through wood, and once we find out why this imagery keeps appearing, you almost want to yell “Come on!” Many of the provocations inflicted upon Sandra come across as more as plot devices to push her further to the breaking point than anything else. And in a standard low-budget revenge drama, that may be fine. When we watch an exploitation flick, we are not looking for much more than cheap thrills. But this movie posits to be more. It’s classier, deeper, and theoretically smarter, yet it falls into the same traps as the standard cheapo revenge flick. God’s Country has noble intentions but cannot move past its film origins.