A boy and his father ride into the Montana wilderness. Actually, not quite: first they park their pickup truck at the home of a concerned friend, borrow his horse, and then head into the woods, their eyes on Canada. Meanwhile, in a small, working-class home, a woman calls out for her daughter, realizes she’s not there, and then phones the police, claiming her soon-to-be ex-husband has abducted the child. 

We promptly learn that the two narrative threads concern the same kid. Whether this 12-year-old is a daughter to the mother or a son to the father is a central point of contention between the parents. To Sally (Jillian Bell), her child is a girl, whose fascination with cowboy boots and her aversion to dresses is just a phase. Yet Troy (Steve Zahn) cannot deny that Joe (Sasha Knight) is a boy after he has confessed his gender identity to his father. The two of them share a love of cowboy stories, and they head for Canada, presumably in search of a better place for Joe to grow up. 

If the above summary sounds simplistic, with one parent as the villain and the other as the hero, then the film’s greatest strength is that writer/director Anna Kerrigan opts for nuance. Sally has been raised with certain ideas that she’s afraid to abandon: she insists Joe wear dresses instead of pants because she is worried how the other kids in school would react. Furthermore, she rationalizes that Joe’s actions spring from a natural desire for escape based on the more carefree example of a cowboy (as she complains to Troy in one of their many arguments “Who would choose to be a girl?”). And Troy, though kind, understanding, and imaginative, struggles with bipolar disorder and alcoholism—his temper has gotten him into trouble with the law. 

Cowboys is divided among Troy and Joe’s attempted journey to Canada, the police search for the two of them, and flashbacks to the events that led to their flight. The film is, for the most part, naturalistic, with the slightly ironic addition of country western music. Throughout, the wilderness of Montana and the small town are captured in striking, straightforward photography. The result is ultimately a compassionate film that does not emphasize, or capitalize, on trauma. By the end, we are led to believe that wounds can be healed.

However, events toward the end strain plausibility, and Joe is not quite as well realized a character as either of his parents. Though well played by Knight (who is transgender), Joe is much too aware of his parents’ faults, and articulate when it comes to voicing them, to be fully convincing as an adolescent. While some 12-year-olds are more perceptive than others, Joe’s observations are so conveniently on-point that, at times, they are not convincing. Sally and Troy are wonderfully nuanced characters in the performances by Bell and Zahn and in Kerrigan’s script. Joe, by contrast, comes across as somewhat one-note in the writing, though not in Knight’s portrayal. 

Cowboys deserves credit all the same for Kerrigan’s willingness to create a film with a social justice angle that avoids the blacks and whites of our current political discourse. The goodness of its spirit is hard to resist, and it may be just the sort of film we need to help us get through these difficult times. 

Cowboys was slated to world premiere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, which was cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic. It won two jury prizes: Best Actor for Zahn and Best Screenplay in the U.S. Narrative Feature category.