Low-budget period indies rarely inhabit their world as convincingly as does this drama, which is set in the South in 1864.
Young Will (Ashton Sanders) is a former slave who, with his uncle Marcus (Keston John), has wandered into another kind of bondage. Bounty hunter Burrell (scary-looking Bill Oberst Jr.) orders them, on pain of death, to bring back escaped slave Nate (Tishuan Scott). The characters only occasionally stumble into the war being fought over their fates.
Director Chris Eska and cinematographer Yasu Tanida let their shots breathe; the landscape feels lived-in, not like pretty backdrops. The actors — especially Scott — make silence as telling as the dialogue.
As Will grows close to Nate, revelations are a bit artificially delayed. But the film’s reckoning, when it comes, is fully as heartbreaking as it should be.