Andrew Patterson’s sophomore feature The Rivals of Amziah King is a comedic modern Western that swerves headfirst into lurid revenge drama — all while featuring soulful musical interludes, centering on a story about stolen bees. It runs the emotional and tonal gamut akin to a South Indian blockbuster, with the requisite stylizations that make it feel enormous in scope. It’s country maximalism, with a highly controlled visual approach that feels liberated, to the point of overcoming even the movie’s most noticeable flaws.
It starts out incredibly strong, fumbles along the way, but recovers magnificently by throwing off the shackles of expectation (not to mention, of consistent morality). There are times when its tale of a kindly apiarist and mandolin strummer, Amziah King (Matthew McConaughey), verges on outsider art — given its whizbang unfurling and rosy view of disquieting character turns — which only makes it more meaningful when it maintains an unwavering focus on community.
In that vein, the film is equally about Amziah’s foster daughter, a young Choctaw girl named Kateri (Angelina LookingGlass), who returns to their rural Oklahoma town after years away, and slowly begins to feel at home. After establishing a wistful, folksy emotional core told with the broadness of soap opera, The Rivals of Amziah King earns the right to fly off the rails, since it also earns its audience’s trust enough to know they’ll follow.
What is The Rivals of Amziah King about?
It’s incredibly appropriate that such delicious junk food cinema opens in the dusty parking lot of a fried steak sandwich shack, where a group of musicians tunes up in preparation for the arrival of their ostensible leader. A cowboy boot hits the ground as the camera tilts up and reveals Amziah — bearded and bandanna’d, much like the film’s director — joining his troupe to lead a delightful, impassioned bluegrass number.
The Rivals of Amziah King is as much about its rural setting as it is about its rollicking, Simpsons-esque plot, which builds with detailed absurdity. Soon after the movie’s musical intro, Amziah — known to process and harvest honey — is sought out by the local sheriff to consult on the origins of several recovered barrels of the sugary substance.
The movie treats honey, its sale, and its manufacture with the same somberness and gravity as Breaking Bad does crystal meth. This approach becomes even more amusing when Amziah’s attempts to discern the barrels’ owner — with the help of some blue collar musicians looking for extra cash — results in a gory industrial accident, shot and edited with casual flair. This tips the movie over into a riotous slapstick comedy, whose premise becomes increasingly more difficult to explain to each character Amziah encounters.
As Amziah recovers from the evening’s madness in a diner booth at dawn, one of the onlookers he runs into happens to be Kateri, a Native teen who once lived with him when he and his late wife fostered vulnerable youth, now working as a waitress. The realization puts the most loving smiles on both their faces. Much of the movie’s first half follows Amziah not only reintroducing Kateri to the community but making her feel a part of it, regaling her with idiosyncratic stories through both speech and song.
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The Rivals of Amziah King is a movie about community.
The film’s musical numbers are all diegetic, and they all fit within the narrow confines of what Amziah and his band are capable of playing. However, The Rivals of Amziah King has all the energy and heightened reality of a traditional movie musical, whether or not it technically is one. You could make the argument either way, but its songs prove to be a meaningful dramatic venue for how much the reluctant Kateri does or does not feel connected to those around her, as Amziah playfully convinces her to join in the song and dance.
His rustic Southern storytelling borders on folkloric, especially how he ties bees and beekeeping into his nostalgic view of communal bonds. So, it follows that Kateri would find belonging in his employ. During this first hour, the movie’s lack of overarching conflict is never a hurdle, given its good-natured allure. However, a sudden turn midway through leads to the disappearance of Amizah’s entire bee colony, leaving Kateri as the center of both the narrative and a vigilante investigation into those responsible.
Up to that point, Amziah, and the film at large, have framed the bees not only as a metaphor for their town but an integral part of it as well, by approaching labor as an act of mutual good. Every element of the movie is geared towards ensuring its fabric feels collectivist and communal, even while its colorful individual characters stand out, from Owen Teague’s eager fiddler, to Rob Morgan’s lawyer-pianist, to Cole Sprouse’s fast-food worker and tech sleuth. Perhaps the most lovable among the merry supporting cast is Amziah’s buddy and beekeeping handyman played by Scott Shepherd, whose slurred speech is initially impenetrable to outsiders. But as the film goes on, both Kateria and the audience begin to understand him more clearly — as though we’d been welcomed into the community.
The Rivals of Amziah King is filled with the kind of sugary, “aww, shucks” goodness you could see McConaughey using to launch a heartland political career, but at the same time, there’s nothing cynical about it. When the film eventually takes its midpoint turn, during which the bees disappear and Amziah is sidelined from the narrative, their absence is palpable. By this point, we understand intuitively how tight-knit the bonds of this small town are, from their potlucks to their gatherings to watch musical performances, and anything that hurts one of them ends up hurting them all.
This detour comes with a few downsides, including a visual language that doesn’t immediately match the verve of its first half. However, the impact of those initial scenes continue to ripple and resonate, propelling The Rivals of Amziah King even during its less engaging moments.
The Rivals of Amziah King is an audio-visual treat.
Even when The Rivals of Amziah King shifts into dour territory, forcing Kateri to perform bafflingly malicious actions, the film’s communal justifications remain at the back of our minds. This is in part because LookingGlass delivers such a sincere, wide-eyed performance even when turning to ostensible evil — that a turn this ludicrous works is a wonder! — but it’s also owed to how unflinchingly the camera captures every physical and ethical dimension.
The film has no qualms about how destructive Kateri becomes during her revenge mission. Her actions aren’t violently over the top, but they exist in the shadows and have disturbing ripple effects; at one point, she even considers poisoning a dog to get what she wants. And yet, the camera retains its adoration for her. While this more serious, straightforward second half slows down for a breather, the heroic aesthetic language it uses to capture LookingGlass seldom deviates from how Patterson shoots McConaughey in initial scenes, framing Kateri as a worthy spiritual successor to Amziah.
There’s a mythic quality to both lead characters, owed to both subtle push-ins, as well as overt visual swings like speed-ramping and slow-motion during musical scenes, as well as still snapshots during energetic frolic. Each visual detail stands out, from the texture of food to the stomping of boots around the table to create rhythm — even the arhythmic sound Amziah’s wedding ring makes when he taps it on the table, drawing attention to a void in his life. The film is in a state of perpetual motion and constant transformation.
Together, all these moments make The Rivals of Amziah King feel like it’s floating on air. All the while, it takes you with it, making you feel like you’re being lifted out of your seat, thanks to the high of a riotously funny, expertly sappy musical melodrama that borrows from the mythical image-making of traditional Westerns, but creates something wholly new.
The Rivals of Amziah King was reviewed out of its world premiere at 2025 SXSW.
