How blessed are we to have a whole six hours of Kevin Costner’s mythopoetic Horizon already make their way to (some) audiences, especially when this project has been on his wish list since 1988? I often try to demystify festival viewing experiences by supplying an honest, sometimes critical lens through which a reader can see the cracks in their glossy surfaces. Nevertheless, in the case of Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2, I’d own every bit of privilege that brought me to its Venice premiere––in a rather small venue, on the very last afternoon, with little fanfare––not least because Costner’s multi-chapter saga is so difficult to see on the big screen. It’s not just the scale of storytelling or the fact that the Hollywood legend sponsored a huge chunk of its production himself, not the runtime and two more planned installments to (hopefully) come––it’s the dedication to cinema as a place for genuine connection, both between the characters onscreen and between audience and film.
Even if you don’t remember the extensive sneak-peek montage Chapter 1 ended with, the second film is generous enough for context, developments, and action. Chapter 2 takes up where the last left off, following the story of one settlement in the American West. Frances Kittredge (Sienna Miller) and her daughter Elizabeth (Georgia MacPhail) are trying to rebuild their home and life after having lost a husband and father in Horizon, the outpost town that’s billed as a coveted place to settle by many a poster flung around by various characters in the film. Now they finally meet Owen (Will Patton), brother to the late James, and his three daughters, the feistiest of which (Diamond) is played by Isabelle Fuhrman with a joyful, slightly venomous streak. It is the women that steal Chapter 2; not only do they persevere like the persecuted sex worker Marigold (Abbey Lee) and the widowed Mrs. Proctor (Ella Hunt) deciding to take revenge on her abusers, but they actively fight back.
In this ferocious fight for new frontiers, men are (to no one’s surprise) cruel and suspicious towards each other; that some are even more vicious to women is even less shocking. But without an ounce of didacticism or performative victimhood, Horizon: Chapter 2 stands by its women. Indeed, the film shares time with them, whether it’s Frances bargaining for wood to rebuild the house or Diamond pleading with her father to take a stand against misogynistic violence. Somehow these scenes feel both atemporal and timely. In a way, the most exciting thing about the Horizon films is how easily it inhabits tropes and conventions while staying truthful to cinema as a means of expression rather than playing a box-ticking exercise. Costner paints with broad strokes, blessed by the ease of a seasoned professional, but he never disappoints. In his acting duties, Costner’s own Hayes Ellison towers over other characters and is perhaps the quietest one, but a well-meaning vigilante never gets out unscathed.
There’s always a lot happening and a lot interjecting with it, and yet Chapter 2 is never a strain on the spectator. While the first part was packed with more action and edited in a more belligerent way, this one allows a slowing-down of pace (only a little) so we can get to know those characters better. They remain sketch-like in some way, motivations obscured and their future steps unpredictable, but this is also what the genre ordered. That, in the end, everyone is yearning for Horizon remains a beautiful melodramatic touch: in this symbol Costner has weaved a Romantic thread without diminishing the traumatic resonances associated with every depiction of that era. Horizon: Chapter 2 doesn’t take any extra steps to unearth that trauma, but lays it out bare.
Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2 premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival and is awaiting a release date from Warner Bros.