Big Picture Big Sound

Teaching Nothing

There is a line that separates slow and building from just slow. Chloé Zhao's "Songs My Brothers Taught Me" falls on the wrong side of this line. Set on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, one would expect that the setting would be important to the story, but it's really not.

Johnny Winters (John Reddy) is a teenager who illegally sells bootleg liquor on the reservation. His 11-year-old sister, JaShaun (JaShaun St. John), follows him around in an adoring fashion. His girlfriend, Aurelia (Taysha Fuller), is moving to Los Angeles to go to college. He wants to follow her there, but he's hesitant to leave his sister with their mother (Irene Bedard), because mom isn't exactly the loving, doting type. Dad has recently died and he was a worthless rodeo rider that seemingly had children with every woman in the area.

The beginning is promising, but the film never accelerates to another level. The ending comes and you'll wonder what the point was. There are some interesting scenes, including one where everyone in a classroom is holding an exotic animal at their desks during class, although I'm not sure why. When the teacher asks his students what they want to be when they grow up, the most popular answer is bull rider, including from Johnny.

Many characters wander in and out and we are not entirely sure who they are and why they are there. It really doesn't matter, because it's all less about story then a general feel, anyway. Maybe this would have worked better if there was even less plot and it was an odd sort of art piece. Johnny might have learned a song or two from his brothers, but I didn't learn a thing.