Cowboys review: ’10-year-old trans actor steals show in Montana-set near-masterpiece’

Words: Jamie Tabberer; picture: Sasha Knight and Steve Zahn in Cowboys (Limelight)

Mere seconds into Cowboys, and this travel-and-nature-starved reviewer audibly gasped. The film opens with a father and son, cliffside and on horseback, humbled by a Montana vista.

It was so majestic, I had to press pause.

The shot stands in stark contrast to the acid bright landscapes of the upcoming Avatar sequels – and the eye-watering cost to computer-generate them – and sparks immediate climate crisis quandaries.

But such thoughts only intensify, rather than distract from, the dazzling cinematography on display. Someone here clearly knows Montana’s terrain like the back of their hand.

Appreciating what’s natural is a major theme in Cowboys. The plot follows frazzled, separated couple Sally and Troy (a well-matched Jillian Bell and Steve Zahn) and the wildly different roads they take in coming to terms with their child Joe’s trans identity.

Sasha Knight – an inexplicably talented 10-year-old trans actor – plays Joe. In another, better universe, he’s surely celebrating a Best Actor Oscar nomination right now.

This kid can on a chair and stare into space, and be mesmerising – because there’s so much going on beneath the surface. And while it is a quiet performance, there’s range on display: from pre-tween temper tantrums to a sage-like steer on gender conversations. (Suffice to say, the claimed insight into the lives of trans children in right-wing newsrooms and the toxic gutters of social media have never seemed more inauthentic than upon watching this film).

Knight’s so luminous, he rather shows up his on-screen parents. Zahn is immensely likeable as a pill-popping dad with a heart of gold, but his is a big production that pulls too much focus from his costars.

There’s also a warmth to Bell [above] – for all their mistakes, they’re decent parents, is the somewhat laboured point – but she could have gone in harder as the parent reluctant to embrace Joe’s gender journey.

Still, hers is an earthy, lived-in character worlds apart from her fab turn in 2019’s Brittany Runs a Marathon. It’s also lovely to see another side to Ann Dowd – known of late for heinous roles in The Handmaid’s Tale and Hereditary – as the unflappable detective tasked with tracking down Sally’s “daughter” when an increasingly troubled Troy abducts Joe.

Cowboys might’ve benefitted from more than an 82-minute running time and a bolder key to impart its vitally important message. But mark our words: Knight is a major star of tomorrow, and thus the film is destined to grow in recognition.

4.5/5

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