LES COWBOYS is a strange dark drama, quite unlike anything the rather whimsical title had let me to expect, but entirely in keeping with the superb dramas written by first-time feature director Thomas Bidegain. In movies like RUST AND BONE and THE PROPHET, directed by Jacques Audiard, Bidegain had helped to create worlds that documented a gritty reality of contemporary France. He also seemed to focus on characters at just the key moments of life-changing reversal. They come to us with no history, and we observe them tackling great obstacles.
In this case we are in provincial France in the mid 1990s. A family is attending some kind of American country music festival, complete with father (Francois Damiens) in cowboy hat singing the Tennessee Waltz. But at that very event, their teenage daughter Kelly disappears, and it is soon revealed that she has a muslim boyfriend, is studying Arabic and was potentially being swayed by Islamist propaganda. Spurned by the police and viewed with suspicion by the Ministry of the Interior, the father takes it upon himself to follow every lead to try and find Kelly. This takes many years, and takes him to many countries so that eventually he too learns to speak Arabic. And eventually, their son, Kid (Finnegan Oldfield) becomes embroiled in the quest, travelling as far as Pakistan after 9/11 and coming across John C Reilly’s mercenary.
In this case we are in provincial France in the mid 1990s. A family is attending some kind of American country music festival, complete with father (Francois Damiens) in cowboy hat singing the Tennessee Waltz. But at that very event, their teenage daughter Kelly disappears, and it is soon revealed that she has a muslim boyfriend, is studying Arabic and was potentially being swayed by Islamist propaganda. Spurned by the police and viewed with suspicion by the Ministry of the Interior, the father takes it upon himself to follow every lead to try and find Kelly. This takes many years, and takes him to many countries so that eventually he too learns to speak Arabic. And eventually, their son, Kid (Finnegan Oldfield) becomes embroiled in the quest, travelling as far as Pakistan after 9/11 and coming across John C Reilly’s mercenary.
