The Rivals of Amziah King

For much of my adult life people – rightly or wrongly – have assumed that I’m something of a cold bitch. This might be due to how my face is at rest, or because I’m quite shortsighted and can’t see when people are waving at me in public, or because I get a kick out of violent, disturbing movies.

I wouldn’t push back on this characterisation at all; each of those rationales is categorically true and at the same time, I dare you to find someone who is moved to tears more frequently by the jovial and deeply sincere playing of instruments as I am. 

“Music is my delight. In fact, there are few people in England Perth, Western Australia who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or better natural taste. If I had ever learnt (the mandolin), I should have been a great proficient.” - me

A good cinematic jam sesh has never failed to bring a lump to my throat and salty water to my eyes and there’s one particular instrument that does it with more efficacy than any other: the banjo.

I don’t know if it’s the symbolism of this historically working class instrument or that I simply enjoy its register but when someone pulls out a banjo, be they Steve Martin, the kid in Deliverance or Kermit the Frog, I’m immediately onside. I now know that mandolins, which also fall into the category of little acoustic stringed not-guitars, render a similar effect.

That’s because The Rivals of Amziah King opens with Matthew McConaughey joining his boys at a truck stop for a steak sandwich, a Dr. Pepper and a sesh on the mandolin (accompanied by fiddle and guitar), a scene after which I fell head over heels in love. Writer/director Andrew Patterson kept me that way throughout the entirety of his sophomore feature.

Matthew McConaughey shredding on the mando

The setup is this: honeymaking, mandolin-playing pillar of the rural Oklahoma community Amziah King (McConaughey) reunites with his foster daughter Kateri (newcomer Angelina LookingGlass) and offers her a job. It’s an improvement on her diner job but it’s not without its trials; someone is stealing hives from local honeymakers. Amziah, unsurprised but willing to help the law’s investigation, offers up his intel. 

Life goes on as it tends to do and it looks like more communal singing, potlucks at the local hall, a side quest to rid a primary school of a hectic swarm (which Amziah hilariously dubs “a dark day” for the elementary school). But when the trouble that’s been plaguing other local honeymakers hits Amziah’s business, life starts to go a little different.

Given how strongly I responded to this film – with joyful tears, with that satisfied feeling I get from watching revenge play out – I was surprised to see that not everyone found it as crowdpleasing. The film’s murky morality seems to be the main gripe and it’s not something I can easily rebut; people engage with movies/art in different ways and I think this is a film whose wavelength you need to be on to completely buy in.

For what it’s worth, I think morality is a stretchier concept than some like to admit. To me, The Rivals of Amziah King is about the natural push and pull between all things. Constant fighting and moments of chill. The taste of honey and the means (i.e. bees regurgitating nectar) of producing it. The wholesomeness and ugliness of human nature. Your code and someone else’s.

The film is pretty explicit about there being only one concrete rule in the South: that you do not, under any circumstances, steal a man’s truck. It’s this unspoken and hilariously accepted social contract that makes my buy-in to onscreen communities, like the one Patterson has so beautifully constructed in this film, so resolute.

And I think buy-in is what will determine whether you submit to the film wholeheartedly or whether you remain at arm’s length, resistant to its charms. If you love a jam sesh, watching people hang and going on adventures of questionable legality, there’s a chance you’ll love it as much as I did.

☆☆☆☆☆