Description
A film by Haroula Rose
2019 | Drama | 92 mins | USA
A traditional coming-of-age story, Once Upon a River nonetheless boasts a most unconventional heroine in Margo Crane (newcomer Kendi DelaCerna in a knockout performance), a 15-year-old girl being raised in a riverside cabin amid the wilderness of western Michigan by her Native American father, after her white mother has abandoned them. Margo is a prodigy with a rifle, an eagle-eyed huntress, who idolizes Annie Oakley, and a stoic loner who guardedly strives to prove herself in a community dominated by men. Her strong will carries her forward through a succession of horrifying events that compel her to leave home, and find her way through a series of encounters, as she goes in search of her mother. Rose adapted the film from the 2011 novel of the same name, written by Bonnie Jo Campbell. “I really love that it’s about friendship and resilience in really difficult times but in a really unique way,” says Rose, an accomplished singer-songwriter with a string of short films to her name, and credits on such Sundance breakouts as Fruitvale Station, on which she was an associate producer. “She’s on an odyssey. It’s essentially a road movie, but in very particular circumstances, and she’s a girl becoming a woman among all these men but still kind of holding her own.”
