Let Him Go: Neon NZ Film Review

Thomas Bezucha's neo-Western, based on the book of the same name by Larry Watson, is a taut and suffocating film to watch.

But it's even more compelling because of the fact - and because Diane Lane delivers a career-best performance as a troubled mother.

Lane and Costner star as Margaret and George Blackledge, a grieving mother and mother whose son is killed early on in a freak accident on their farm as they're bathing their grandson. When their daughter-in-law remarries one of the feared Weboy family, Margaret is unsettled to see her beloved grandson and his mother hit in the streets by her new husband.

Distraught at the news they've left town, and fearful for their grandson's life, Margaret decides to set out across the heartland of the US to rescue them, and bring him home. But her husband, a former sheriff, isn't sure the move is the best one - and things are further complicated when the pair clash with the Weboy matriarch (played with steely coldness by Manville).

Let Him Go is a searing film that builds simmering tension throughout.

It helps that Costner and Lane have mature chemistry and deliver performances that are stunning to watch, mired as they are in subtlety and solemnity. Neither deliver pretentious turns, but both convince they are lived in people whose lives have led to this awful point.

Equally Manville, in few scenes, delivers a matriarch for the ages. Scenes with her facing off as the head of the family crackle with electricity and uncertainty, and revel in their awfulness. It helps Donovan gives an ambivalent performance as the male head of the family, cowed in the presence and power of Manville's Blanche Weboy. It's the kind of stuff nightmares are made of, and Manville's performance is on a par with Jackie Weaver's fire-breathing dragon in Animal Kingdom.

But Let Him Go - with a truly upsetting and tightly ratcheted tense sequence inside a motel - belongs to Lane and Costner's mature double act. 

Their reserved performance accentuates Blanche's nastiness and cruel veneer, and Bezucha's restrained direction helps build the firecracker and powderkeg to Let Him Go's conclusion that's as explosive as it is stunning.

Patience is a reward with Let Him Go - it's emotionally draining and yet at the same time, it's the kind of drama you can't tear your eyes away from.