There’s a moment in “The Rivals of Amziah King” where Amziah (Matthew McConaughey) details the different kinds of bees that make up a hive: the drones, the worker bees, the queen. The longtime Oklahoma beekeeper is imparting his wisdom to Kateri (Angelina LookingGlass), a one-time foster kid of his who has recently turned up out of the blue. After they run into each other at a diner thanks to a sequence of bizarre but fortuitous events, Amziah takes Kateri under his wing as a new worker bee and member of his hive — it’s what he’s wont to do with most of the strays that come his way in this quirky modern western about the surprisingly high-stakes world of honey production.
As Amziah demonstrates during this lesson, the queen is the center of the universe and without her, the colony would collapse. The insects protect their queen, collecting in a roiling, humming mass on his hand. “The Rivals of Amziah King” is the story of one queen replacing another in order to keep the colony intact, but we’re not talking about bees at this point.
The film is a tremendous sophomore effort from writer-director Andrew Patterson — a daring, unique and action-packed follow-up to his 2019 debut feature “The Vast of Night,” a 1950s sci-fi mystery made on a shoestring budget. With more resources and more movie stars in tow, Patterson scales up his vision, bringing his closest collaborators along and delivering one of the most surprising and original movies of the year: a rollicking, bluegrass-fueled slice of quirky Southern pulp.
It’s immersive, character-driven and stylish; a spiky, enjoyable piece of filmmaking that is wholly distinctive and hasn’t had all its personality sanded down, the kind of movie you could recommend to anyone. The same could be said about this summer’s “Tuner,” also produced and distributed by Black Bear, which is making a name for itself as a studio backing these kinds of “they don’t make them like they used to” movies.
In “The Rivals of Amziah King,” the moment with the queen bee is when the film transitions from its wild, wacky — but intentional — world-building into a sleek Southern noir. Amziah hands off the honey plant to Kateri as McConaughey, the Oscar-winning movie star, hands off the film to newcomer LookingGlass in her very first movie role.
Each half of the film reflects the character it follows, the first part frenetic, densely packed and bursting with music. Kateri’s section is quieter and methodical like its central hero, who slips undetected among this community to sow her chaos and reap her revenge. But the second half requires the first to function properly. We need to know this hive and the bees that inhabit it in order for it all to make sense, to feel right, and Patterson makes sure the table is properly set, every detail a dish offering something different but necessary for the meal to satisfy, like the community potluck that Amziah walks Kateri through.
“The Vast of Night” was marked by its epic long takes, courtesy of cinematographer M.I. Littin-Menz, who also shoots “The Rivals of Amziah King” with a sun-dappled sense of naturalistic beauty and thoughtful close-ups. But this film’s logic lies in the edit, starting and ending with a stop-start stutter motif that jars us into this world of a small Oklahoma town, where a bluegrass band jams in a restaurant parking lot.
Patterson and editor Patrick J. Smith interweave scenes of intrigue and shocking violence, take liberties with Amziah’s storytelling asides and give us barn-burning musical sequences. With a large ensemble cast, everyone gets their due, including Kurt Russell as late-arriving big agriculture antagonist Dob McCoy. But even the baddie gets a fully fleshed-out tale.
Structurally, “The Rivals of Amziah King” is a strange and expectation-defying film, a sort of shaggy weird hangout movie that starts as a small-town caper and morphs into a western revenge picture about the nuances of outlaw justice. But its heart remains in the right place, thanks to McConaughey’s raw, soulful performance. This is a familiar, lived-in mode for him as an actor (especially in the latter part of his career) as a wily, almost feral good old boy.
But there’s something sweeter about this version of McConaughey and it’s due in large part to his performance opposite LookingGlass, who bears a quiet magnetism onscreen and capably shoulders her portion of the story. The title might declare itself concerned with the rivals of Amziah King, but they’re a red herring — this is really about the reign of Kateri.
Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.
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