Kevin Costner’s western epic Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (hate the title!) premiered at Cannes over the weekend. Festival reviews are not to be trusted, but Vulture’s critic, Bilge Ebiri, called it “Dune: Part One for dads” which made me laugh out loud.
My dad only watches a handful of new films each year (the rest: repeats of Patton or The Godfather), and he is VERY excited about Horizon, so Bilge is probably right. Horizon is the daddest of all dad movies. (As for Costner’s other western project, Yellowstone season five resumed filming without him. I still don’t think we have the full picture of what happened here, but Costner addressed it a little bit, and it sounds like by opening renegotiations on his contract, they also opened the door for Costner to bolt, and he did.)
Kevin Costner, who self-financed Horizon by selling Santa Barbara real estate, much as Francis Ford Coppola sold his winery to finance Megalopolis and I am 100% okay with rich people selling their rich stuff to pay for their movies, rich people should never be asking regular people for money, for anything, ever, up to and including new sports stadiums, took only the women starring in the film to the premiere…with a couple exceptions. Costner previously told PEOPLE he would take the women because “[w]omen are the reason the country goes forward. […] They were taken advantage of and they were resilient. I couldn't tell the story unless it revolved around them.”
He also praised star Sienna Miller, specifically, saying, “I think she's one of our great actresses. Her outward beauty is undeniable, but she's so skilled as an actress.”
He did, indeed, walk the red carpet with the several of the women starring in his sprawling epic, including Miller, Jena Malone, Isabelle Fuhrman (the orphan from The Orphan!), Ella Hunt, Georgia McPhail, and Lakota actor and model Wasé Chief. He was also joined by Luke Wilson and Alejandro Edda, who presumably paid their own way to be there (Costner said he’d get dudes a ticket but not pay for their trip), and his fifteen-year-old son, Hayes Costner, who plays the younger version of Costner’s character in the film (also named Hayes).
When I read Costner was only taking the women to the premiere, I will admit, my back went up a little. It’s a nice sentiment, but it also feels like a preemptive move against criticism of the film itself. Like, Look, I brought all these wonderful ladies, aren’t these ladies so wonderful, this movie is about these wonderful ladies, don’t criticize it or you’re criticizing these wonderful ladies! It’s like Jerry Seinfeld blaming “woke culture” for not being able to tell jokes and that’s why Unfrosted sucks, or how John Krasinski stuck an intro on the press screening of IF talking about being a girl dad that felt like being told criticizing the film would be criticizing girls and their imaginations. I might be sensitive, but this is also a thing filmmakers do, to get in front of negative press. For what it’s worth, despite Bilge’s positive review, overall, festival sentiment has been harsher.
But it certainly makes for a good photo op. It’s true, these photos from the Horizon premiere stand out, and it is kind of interesting that it’s Kevin Costner, not exactly known as a shining beacon of progressivism in Hollywood, who shared his spotlight like this. He could also be using these women as shields against criticism, but two things can be true. He’s sincere, and he thinks it will save him from some bad reviews.
