Wind River will have you pondering current relationships

Tragedy strikes loneliness into the lives of the main characters

“Wind River” is a crime drama that will help you rethink your relationshipswith everyone around you.

What’s more, it’s having the desire to do what is right even though you are scared or may lack certain skills. In the end, if you persist in stepping against all odds snowballing towards you, you will feel proud.

In “Wind River,” a Native American is discovered dead in the middle of nowhere in the bitter winter. In one of the first scenes, the snow is falling thick and fast and to me, reflected the blindness of the FBI agents.

The Native American was also a young woman no older than eighteen and through testing, found that several guys sexually assaulted and raped her before she was killed.

Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) is the only FBI agent who shows up on-scene and is willing to help. The cops and other investigating forces point at how she is dressed and question how she can do that when she does not come as prepared as she stood. She boldly responds that she came directly off another plane from a warmer area and she was the only agent available and willing.

However, in a scene a little later, Banner does admit that she is still learning how to do her job but is willing to do what she can to solve the case, even if it means risking her life.

She is not the only determined one.

She and Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) a forest ranger show up at the home of Ben, the father, to learn more about the dead woman.
Instead the family feels their privacy is invaded and that their presence and poking around will lead to more trouble.

As the plot unfolds, the audience discovers that Lambert had his own daughter who had her own tragic death and it has separated him from his wife and his son.

He lives in a cabin, simple with furnishings but extravagant in family photos, depicting his solitary state of mind and the loneliness the incident caused.

Both Banner and Lambert learn to step outside of their comfort zones when they go with the police force to confront the dead daughter’s boyfriend, Matt, at a trailer park but he is not there upon their arrival.

Though the forces all claim they are fighting for the same goal, they are ready to gun each other down because of their accumulated mistrust for each other. It is very clear that a power struggle exists among them to regain control and restore order.

Overall “Wind River” is about connection and learning how to cross bridges to reconcile distrust among cross cultures.
It concludes with Lambert and Ben sitting side-by-side with their back against the swing-set, likely what the dead daughter played on when she was younger. It is a powerful image for a few reasons.

First, is that Ben’s memory and vision of his daughter as a little girl and her innocence is completely destroyed forever.
The other reason is vulnerability in the silence that Ben cannot bring the daughter back but he is there for Ben, not just because of his profession but as a friend.