Female Film Critics 24/375
Coming-of-age dramas don’t get much more authentic than Gina Gammell and Riley Keough’s War Pony. Born out of the two women’s deeply personal, long-standing relationship with the Oglala Lakota people of the Pine Ridge Reservation, the film follows two young Lakota men as they deal with the ups and downs of their daily lives. In the process, it offers a frank but tender look at the realities of contemporary life at Pine Ridge.
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Riley Keough and her co-director Gina Gammell, who’ve made an absolute stunner of a narrative feature debut, spent time in Pine Ridge getting to know the Lakota residents and the harsh elements of their environment. Their immersion shows. With a terrific cast of non-professionals drawn from the community, War Pony renders the lives of the Lakota people mired in sprawling Pine Ridge with grim and incisive detail.
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War Pony is an exquisite narrative feature from first time directors Gina Gammell and Riley Keough. Set on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the film centers on two young Oglala Lakota men who are using all of their innate smarts to find opportunities to overcome the overwhelming hardships they face — poverty, abandonment, cultural disenfranchisement. The beautifully crafted film has an authenticity that is absolutely captivating.
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