Dennis Quaid, Jacob Tremblay, and Martha Plimpton also appear in the Tribeca world premiere directed by Christian Swegal.
It's been a special pleasure witnessing Nick Offerman's acting career blossom in recent years. The actor, who rose to fame with his hilarious portrayal of Ron Swanson on the hit series Parks and Recreation, has never stopped working. But his talent has taken on a new lease of life lately, especially with his heartbreaking guest appearance on HBO's Emmy-winning The Last of Us.
Director: Christian Swegal
Writer: Christian Swegal
Stars: Nick Offerman, Jacob Tremblay, Dennis Quaid
Now, with Christian Swegal's debut, Sovereign, which world premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival before its theatrical release on July 11, he's been given his juiciest film role to date. And boy, has he made the most of it.
He's playing a role for which he already has previous experience. In Parks and Recreation, his character was an anti-government libertarian. But what was then interpreted as comedy now becomes completely serious in this drama inspired by true events. The film, set in Arkansas in 2010, tells the story of Jerry Kane, a self-described "sovereign citizen" who proselytized against laws and government authority through appearances on right-wing radio shows and traveling around the Midwest giving seminars on property rights and tax evasion. It's as if Ron Swanson had gone completely crazy.
Jerry, a widowed and unemployed roofer, constantly faces eviction and homeschools his teenage son, Joe (Jacob Tremblay, Room). He is a loving but disciplinarian father, urging his son to pray every night and reminding him, "Don't forget J.C." Like many others of his kind, he fervently believes in the right to bear arms and illegally possesses an AR-15, which gets him into trouble when he and his son are pulled over during a routine traffic stop.
He is promptly arrested, and Joe is temporarily placed in a juvenile facility, where he begins to feel some relief from his father's relentless intensity. The local police chief, John (Dennis Quaid, who brings a quiet gravitas), quietly tells Joe, "I get the impression your father doesn't like the government very much. He has some... interesting ideas." When Jerry is rescued several days later by his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Lesley Anne (Martha Plimpton, with a touching affection), he is even more extreme than before, threatening to sue the arresting officer, refusing to acknowledge the authority of the court, and walking out of the courtroom during the trial.
Director and screenwriter Swegal intercuts the story of Jerry and his son with scenes involving the police chief and his son, Adam (Thomas Mann), who is training for the force. Their relationship is loving but strained, with John constantly criticizing his son for things like picking up his newborn baby whenever he cries. For a long time, it's difficult to understand why the narrative diverges in such different directions, until the stories fatally intertwine in the film's devastating climax.
More timely than ever in its portrayal of a radicalized segment of society rebelling against government authority, Sovereign could have benefited from a little more background on what drove Jerry to embark on his maverick path. However, it works well on its own, especially in its depiction of the complex relationships between fathers and sons.
Offerman is simply brilliant, bringing the outsized charisma needed to understand Jerry's influence on vulnerable people, while also conveying the humanity that explains why his son and his girlfriend remain loyal to him. His character's tough-love approach is effectively dramatized in a digressive but powerful scene in which he gently but firmly forces Lesley Anne to confront her terrifying fear of horses. Tremblay, with an intense and captivating cinematic presence, is equally effective in his role as the son who loves his troubled father enough to tragically follow in his footsteps.
Featuring the woefully underused (but always welcome) Nancy Travis, Sovereign benefits greatly from its empathetic, non-exploitative approach to its controversial subject matter. It's an uncomfortable, but necessary, film.
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