‘The Rivals Of Amziah King’ review: Matthew McConaughey serves up his trademark Southern charm in unpredictable beekeeping thriller

Dir: Andrew Patterson. US. 2025. 131mins

As flavourful as the honey that is prized by the film’s main characters, Andrew Patterson’s sprawling second feature starts off as a slice-of-life drama before transforming into a quirky thriller. The Rivals Of Amziah King stars Matthew McConaughey as an Oklahoma beekeeper reunited with an Indigenous young woman he fostered when she was a girl, played by poised newcomer Angelina LookingGlass. The picture’s regional flair and unpredictable journey are its selling points, even when the story hits an occasional dead end.

Dramatically uneven but nonetheless engaging

Premiering last year at SXSW, The Rivals opens in North America on August 14. McConaughey should help attract audiences, as will positive reviews, but LookingGlass has the potential to be the film’s major talking point thanks to her breakout role. This proudly peculiar genre mashup may prove too hard a sell for mainstream crowds, but like Patterson’s 2019 debut, the sci-fi drama The Vast Of Night, The Rivals should find a niche audience intrigued by its odd twists and turns.

Amziah (McConaughey) runs a popular local honey operation when he’s not leading his propulsive bluegrass band. Laidback and philosophical, all the while mourning his wife’s death, he is startled to run into Kateri (LookingGlass), whom he and his spouse took in when she was about eight. Amziah and Kateri have not seen each other for more than a decade and now she is back in town, hoping to start a new life as an independent adult.

The Rivals’ early reels suggest a casual portrait of an American Southwest small town, one filled with idiosyncratic individuals who march to the beat of their own drum. By this point in his long career, McConaughey’s hippie/dreamer onscreen persona is so well established that it is understandable why he would gravitate to portraying this warm eccentric, but the cliched role does not provide him with many new fresh angles to pursue.

Luckily Patterson — who wrote the screenplay under his usual pseudonym James Montague — has surprises in store. After a terrible shock rattles the community, the characters realise that Amziah’s valuable bee colonies have been stolen. After initially appearing to be merely a supporting player, Kateri takes it upon herself to investigate the crime, which may lead to a powerful businessman, McCoy (Kurt Russell), who is one of Amziah’s many rivals in the competitive local honey industry.

The film dabbles in noir and the western, and The Vast Of Night cinematographer Miguel I. Littin-Menz gives the picture a widescreen grandeur that emphasises the flat landscape and endless skies (the film shot in Alabama.) Patterson has a feel for the sleepy rhythms of backwoods communities, as well as the sense that everyone knows everyone else’s business. He fills the soundtrack with bluegrass, Southern rock and gospel, occasionally filming performances by Amziah’s band and others. Editor Patrick J. Smith expertly cuts between these musical sequences and important plot developments, whereas elsewhere he includes the occasional freeze frame within a scene, adding a touch of the mythic to what will ultimately become a revenge tale.

Kateri’s Native heritage eventually serves as a key to The Rivals’ larger exploration of legacy and history. Patterson, who has worked with Oklahoma’s Choctaw Nation, begins to see Kateri’s quest as not only a way to repay Amziah’s kindness, but also a chance to reconnect with the land and her culture. Soon, this unconfident young woman will find her voice and, although some of the character’s bolder gambits are not completely believable, LookingGlass is such a resilient presence that she mostly sells Kateri’s newfound ability to square off with criminals.

As The Rivals flirts with different genres, the film sometimes leave the viewer disoriented by its tonal shifts. An amusing opening sequence in which we meet Amziah and his bandmates suddenly lurches toward darker, bloodier terrain after a freak accident leaves one of his associates (Tony Revolori) gravely injured. Played for gasp-inducing laughs, that set piece is a fitting warning for the episodic, volatile narrative that follows — one that will occasionally be whimsical, other times unexpectedly bleak. Wistful musings on the inner workings of bee colonies intermingle with tense chase sequences and homey potluck dinners. Patterson immerses us in a colourful world that may be dramatically uneven but is nonetheless an engaging place to visit.