Sovereign
A disturbing tale of modern alienation with political overtones, as a teen struggles to come to terms with his father's anti-government paranoia and quiet abuse.
It’s hard to miss the political overtones of “Sovereign,” a psychological drama starring Nick Offerman as a guy consumed with government paranoia. In some ways Jerry Kane is an extreme caricature of Offerman’s Ron Swanson character from TV’s “Parks and Recreation,” except he’s not cuddly and his dark moods tend to result in arrests, not comedic hijinks.
Based in Arkansas in a ramshackle house with garbage strewn across the yard, Jerry travels the country giving advice to similarly disaffected red-staters about how to stand up to the government and banks — something he defines as giving them one red cent of his hard-earned money. He’s the sort of guy who knows just enough of the law not to win in court, but make himself a miserable pain in the ass during the proceedings.
As the story opens his son, Joe (Jacob Tremblay), who’s about 16, is at home alone when they receive a 30-day eviction notice. He’s home-schooled, which Jerry seems to take little direct part in, but he at least makes sure Joe’s getting the work done. He dismisses the notice, refusing to even touch it, bizarrely concluding that if he hasn’t been directly served he can claim, “I haven’t received anything.”
He believes there’s a distinction between one’s God-given self and the “straw man,” the identity crafted for you by the government through birth certificates, mortgages and paper money. Jerry refuses to get a driver’s license or insurance, which can present a problem when you drive for your job.
One of the things writer/director Christian Swegal — making his feature film debut after an apprenticeship in shorts — leaves open is how good of a father Jerry is. He’s clearly a loon, but on some level he seems to truly love Joe and want what’s best for him. His wife died long ago giving birth to their second child.
“You’re a prince, an absolute prince,” Jerry tells Joe in a rare moment of expressiveness.
Jerry is the sort of guy who on the surface seems very stand-up: independent, strong-willed but clearly devoted to his kid. But his way of interacting with the rest of the world is all-conflict, all the time, and that’s inevitably seeped into his relationship with Joe. I’d call him quietly abusive.
Jerry decides to take Joe with him on his latest work trip, which involves driving around to church halls and civic clubs to give talks on how people can gum up the works of government and keep foreclosures stalled indefinitely. There’s a certain revival showmanship involved, with the Kanes dressed in matching white suits. Jerry is sincere about connecting with these down-and-outers — though of course he charges them money to learn from him.
For a time father and son are separated by circumstance, and Joe gets a taste of what life would be like if he attended a regular school and interacted with other teens. There’s also a crush on Candace (Kezia DaCosta), the girl from the religious family next door. Joe’s desire to take the placement test for school drives a wedge deeper between him and his dad.
An erstwhile, sorta girlfriend appears midway in the form of Lesley Anne (Martha Plimpton), a student of Jerry’s who became something more. She’s got her own raft of troubles, but the two cling to each other with something like sincerity. There’s a scene where Jerry helps her overcome her childhood fear of horses that demonstrates what a good man he could be, if he let himself.
A parallel story stars Dennis Quaid as the police chief of a nearby town. Nearing retirement, John Bouchart is looking to pass the torch to his son, Adam (Thomas Mann), who’s finishing up at the police academy and already has a newborn son. The chief harangues his kid for not letting the baby cry itself to sleep, like he did back when Adam was a kid. John is proud of his son, but also wishes he were a little more like himself.
The movie is clearly weighted toward the tale of Jerry and Joe, and while the police side of the piece has a substantial energy all its own, it seems like it either needed its own film or be cut out. Swegal is clearly hinting that the twin stories are eventually going to converge, and not in a peaceful way.
(I strive not to give away the plot in my reviews, but the trailers for “Sovereign,” featuring Jerry spraying bullets from a semi-automatic rifle, accomplish this all on their own.)
I wouldn’t call this a political movie per se, but Swegal asks us to examine two different permutations of the right-wing mentality, and ask if they’re really so different. Jerry and John both love their sons but have difficulty expressing it. They want their boys to grow up in their image, which they believe to be the honorable one. John defines himself by his devotion to regular civic order, and Jerry by opposing it.
It’s not that hard to imagine their fates being reversed, with a little help from circumstance.
Tremblay, who broke on the scene as a kid actor with “Room” a decade ago, is given a very reactive role, but inhabits it with empathy and sincerity. We wonder what he could turn out like if he didn’t have Jerry as a dad.
It’s not always a successful parable, but I appreciate “Sovereign” for attempting a nuanced look at a subject that very much gets shunted into left/right good/bad dichotomies that are useful for storytelling, but don’t really have much relation to reality.