‘Let Him Go’ review; Dir. Thomas Bezucha (2020)

Kevin Costner stars in one his best movies for years; a brooding, though extremely tense pot boiler, but the film belongs to the powerhouse central performance of Diane Lane as a loving but strong matriarch unrelenting in her quest to bring home her grandson who has been taken away to live with a very nasty step-family.

Reuniting Superman’s mother and father from Man Of Steel in Costner and Lane, this is a very different family-focussed feature. They play George and Margaret Blackledge, a retired couple living in rural Montana in the early ’60s. Their later years have been plagued by tragedy, their 25-year-old so killed in a tragic horse-riding accident, and now their former daughter-in-law, Lorna (Kayli Carter) has re-married into the Weboy clan, a notorious family from the Dakotas. One morning, Margaret discovers that during a trip to a local supermarket that Lorna’s new husband Donnie (Will Brittain) is raising his hand to not only his wife, but his three-year-old stepson, and George and Margaret’s grandson, Jimmy. A short time later, Margaret learns that the new family have upped sticks from town suddenly, seemingly headed for the Weboys’ homeland.

Margaret decides that she will head to the Dakotas to search for Jimmy, and ultimately bring him home to a better life. Unassuming former lawman, George, maybe disagrees with her plan, but accompanies her anyway. The duo head west, unbeknownst to them what awaits them; the dangerous Weboys headed by vicious matriarch Blanche (a superb Leslie Manville), who will do anything they can to keep their firm grip on the lives of both Lorna and Jimmy.

What initially strikes you about Let Him How is just slowly how slowly writer and director Thomas Bezucha unleashes the narrative. He, and Costner and Lane, paint George and Margaret as very self-effacing though extremely loving family people, the kind of father or mother, or more fittingly grandfather and grandmother, you’d hope to have. Costner particularly is very restrained until the final reel, his character simmering in the background allowing Lane’s Margaret take centre stage, and rightfully so. Lane is excellent in this, a very strong performance from the outset, her turn providing the foundations for the outpouring of heartbreak that is thrown her way.

On the opposite end, Manville is divine as Blanche, the grandmother from hell whose apparent tight grip over her and everyone else’s family is evident in just a handful of scenes she appears in. She very much nearly steals the show.

Bezucha turns the screws and the intensity up during the final third, though the foreboding comes much before. Let Him Go is not an easy watch in places, the violence in the latter half completely unexpected because of them more still, character-driven storyline in its build up. From a filmmaker whose previous films were very much in a different mould (romantic comedies like Monte Carlo, The Big Eden and The Family Stone are his three other credits, directorially, so far), this is hugely impressive turn and switch of genres.

The film’s intensity won’t be for all – it is unbearable in terms of suspense in places – but there’s so much good work going on from all involved that you can’t help be caught up in the narrative and the fine performances on display.

Let Him Go is released in cinemas on 18th December.