NATIONAL ANTHEM

21 year old construction worker Dylan finds a family in a group of queer ranchers and rodeo performers in New Mexico. He falls for barrel dancer and trans woman Sky, the partner of ranch owner Pepe. Through their bond, Dylan acquires the self-assurance to shape his own identity, but in turn may have to go beyond the community he has come to love and treasure so dearly.

Luke Gilford’s film debut is a romantic, empathetic exploration of the queer West, taking the classic iconography and notion of the American dream and reappropriating it into an experience of queer joy and celebration. The painterly cinematography by Katelin Arizmendi has a loving gaze, highlighting the beauty of human bodies and the vast, sprawling desert of New Mexico.

Charlie Plummer gives a sensitive, naturalistic performance as Dylan, capturing a quietness and sense of selfless responsibility. Eve Lindley as Sky is alluring and mesmerising, balancing her character’s spiritedness and exuberance with worldly experience and knowledge. They share a dynamic, infectious chemistry.

Emancipating and inclusive, National Anthem is a film about the radical power of making friends. It creates a blissful pastoral paradise that imparts an important, hopeful view to anyone who feels like an outcast: you are not alone, you just haven’t found your people.