The C&I reader favorite stars with Dale Dickey in Max Walker-Silverman’s western romance.
And now for something completely different: The gentler side of Wes Studi.
The C&I reader favorite has played some pretty tough customers in his time, from the fearsome warrior Magua in The Last of the Mohicans and the brave title character in Geronimo: An American Legend to the clan leader Eytukan in Avatar and the wily bounty hunter Harlan Red in Badland. Even when cast as the fatally ill Chief Yellow Hawk in Hostiles, Studi portrayed the cancer-stricken Cheyenne leader as man who stoically accepted his fate — but insisted on ending his journey on his own terms.
In A Love Song, however, Studi appears more gently humorous and yearningly tender than we’ve ever before seen him on the movie screen. Indeed, the much-admired veteran actor — who received an Academy Honorary Award alongside directors David Lynch and Lina Wertmüller in 2020 — actually appears achingly vulnerable during some scenes opposite the great Dale Dickey (Winter’s Bone, My Name is Earl) in writer-director Max Walker-Silverman’s stealthily charming and quietly compelling western romance.
Dickey stars as Faye, a resilient sixtysomething who has settled into a comfortable routine of birding, fishing and stargazing at a remote Colorado campground. It would be inaccurate to describe her as a recluse, for she easily interacts with people — including a mailman who travels by foot with deliveries on the back of his horse, and a family politely concerned about retrieving the remains of their father buried on the campsite — who sporadically pass by. But her attention remains focused on the possible arrival of a childhood friend, Lito (Studi), whom she invited to visit in a letter mailed quite a while ago.
Faye is a patient woman but, after waiting so long with no answer from Lito, she’s grudgingly prepared to pick up and move on. But then the day comes when Lito responds to her letter. In person. Old times are discussed, histories are shared — and one thing slowly, gingerly, leads to another.
We spoke to Wes Studi this week about A Love Song, which kicks off its theatrical release July 29 in New York and Los Angeles before a nationwide rollout.
