Info
Director: Susanna White
Producers:
- Edward Zwick
- Marshall Herskovitz
- Erika Olde
- Rick Solomon
- Andrea Calderwood
Screenplay by: Steven Knight
Cast:
- Jessica Chastain
- Michael Greyeyes
- Sam Rockwell
- Ciarán Hinds
- Michael Nouri
- Chasce Spencer
- Bill Camp
- Rulan Tangen
- Rachel Singer
- Louisa Krause
- Lyle Sandoval
Music by: George Fenton
Cinematography: Mike Eley
Edit by: Lucia Zucchetti
Production Company:
- Black Bicycle Entertainment
- Bedford Falls Productions
- Potboiler Productions
Distributed by:
- A24
- DirecTV Cinema
Release date: June 29, 2018
Running time: 101 minutes
Country:
- United States
- United Kingdom
Language:
- English
- Lakota
IMDb rating: 6.6 / 10
My rating: 8 / 10
Movie Summary
In 1890 portrait painter Caroline Weldon travels from her hometown Brooklyn to Dakota in order to paint the portrait of Indian chief Sitting Bull.
As their friendship grows overtime, Caroline becomes embroiled in the Lakota peoples’ struggle over the rights to their land.
Character Development
Caroline Weldon is a woman with a successful portrait painting career before getting married and being forced to retire. After her husband dies she leaves her comfortable life in Brooklyn to follow the footsteps of a fellow painter and paint the portrait of an Indian.
Although faced with racism by the white community due to her friendly demeneaur to the Lakota people she stands brave and evolves with Sitting Bull’s advice from a passive woman into a woman of action, who fights for the rights of the supressed Lakota population.
Sitting Bull was once a great chief who managed to defeat the 7th Cavalry Regiment along with other Indian leaders in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Since then the United States government policies have restricted the traditional life of the Lakota and he is in deep mourning of the past years.
His interaction with Caroline gives him an opportunity to revive his beliefs on life and god alike as well as prompt him into using his leadership role for voting against the Lakota losing their land.
Themes
Freedom plays a great role in the film, whether it is the Lakota being out of United State’s control or Caroline choosing her way of living by herself.
Through the wisdom of Sitting Bull, Caroline and we as viewers learn that living a meaningful life is most important than simply living.
Having fears and traumatic past experiences is absolutely understandable but there comes a time when one must face them and evolve into a better version of himself/herself.
My Thoughts
Woman Walks Ahead is one of those films that have so many educational elements yet are so amusing and heartwarming as to never tire you of them.
If you are a lover of historical settings and eager to broaden your worldview, you should definetely give it a try.
