SXSW Movie Review: The Frontier

By Brad Henderson

The Frontier feels like David Lynch directed a made-for-TV ‘90s Noir western stage play with great actors. I’m unsure what to think of it because part of me really dug its Twin Peaks-esque feel and part of me was turned off by this style. At first The Frontier is beautifully crafted, but after some establishing shots, it quickly descends into this stage play gaze, almost like something from The Young & The Restless. The film seems connected to the rest of the world in the beginning but eventually it feels like no outside world exists. I found this confusing because I wasn’t expecting it all.

Our story starts with Laine (The House Of The Devil‘s Jocelin Donahue) who is on the run and turns up at a local diner/hotel called The Frontier. She meets the head honcho, Luanne (Kelly Lynch), who offers her a job because she sees that Laine needs help, but is oblivious to what she is running from. From there Laine meets a few patrons and the town sheriff (AJ Bowen), but we soon discover that this slight detour is going to be more complicated than what Laine was led to believe.

The Frontier feels out of place to me because I’m not sure the filmmakers knew exactly what they wanted or where to go. It hints at taking place in the 1950s, the 1980s, and the 1970s, almost as if its trying to hide the era in which it actually exists. This was another thing that turned me off.

We aren’t familiar with this scenario in movies so I do give The Frontier my respect for having the balls to do this. David Lynch’s recent films, as well as the criminally underseen Thomas Jane directed neo-noir flick, Dark Country, have done this, but I’d have to go back to 1986 and Brian Trenchard-Smith’s Dead End Drive-In to find other examples of films that feel cut off from the rest of the world.

Still, I’m excited to see what director Oren Shai has in store. He definitely has an interesting style. To me, though, it felt like he wanted to do so much with The Frontier but the final outcome was just discombobulated. By no means is the film terrible, it just feels out of place.