The real issue, though, is that it confuses different types of oppression, and seems to propose that people who've experienced misogyny are uniquely qualified to understand racism and vice versa.
As a character, Catherine Weldon suffers the same fate as Sitting Bull, having been reduced to a signifier of the filmmakers' retroactive political correctness.
While some have argued Woman Walks Ahead is a white savior movie, the sorrowful awareness of the film is that it knows all too well about its privilege, and the pain such good intentions can still inflict from 1890 to 2018.
Despite the estimable talent on hand both behind and in front of the camera, the story never comes to convincing life and doesn't, in the end, have anywhere particularly surprising or interesting to go.
Despite screenwriter Steven Knight's pedigree of grippingly good thrillers, this historical western becomes a very long walk too quickly for its own good.
Village Voice
April 19, 2018
Steven Knight's script veers dangerously close to white-savior territory, but the complexity of the native characters is commendable, and the performances are first-rate.
