‘The Rivals of Amziah King’ Boasts the Rocking Movie Scene of the Summer

Blackbear There’s vengeful anger coursing through The Rivals of Amziah King , but also a compassion and love that’s so strong, it’s just about overpowering—highlighted by the feel-good scene of the cinematic summer.

Writer/director Andrew Patterson’s follow-up to The Vast of Night is a thrillingly engrossing tale of a beekeeper named Amziah King (Matthew McConaughey), his former foster daughter Kateri (newcomer Angelina LookingGlass), and the motley individuals who populate their neck of the rural Oklahoma woods.

A fable of idiosyncratic personality and unconventional rhythms, it’s unlike anything else that’s premiered in theaters this year, and it crescendos with an early off-the-cuff musical number whose enveloping empathy is nothing short of inspiring.

In The Rivals of Amziah King (in theaters now), Amziah’s life—spent making and preparing honey for sale and performing bluegrass with his friends—is transformed by the return of Kateri, whom he welcomes back into his fold with instinctive, easygoing warmth.

A regal southern raconteur, Amziah is a king among men and, also, one of the boys, and the way in which he immediately (literally and figuratively) opens his arms up to his prior ward, beginning at a neighborhood get-together where he explains the ins and outs of a traditional potluck, is part and parcel of his benevolent nature.

Following that gathering and, then, a trip to his apiary—where, in a mesmerizing sight, he demonstrates the hive’s loyalty to its queen by having them swarm around his hand—Amziah takes Kateri to his home, which he shares with an amiable pup named Tater Tot.

No sooner have they walked through the door than Amziah is talking up, and then showing off, his mandolin, “a religiously iconic almond-shaped instrument that projects music that transcends time and space.” To prove that point, King calls out his front door to his Brazilian neighbors to come join them.

In an instant, they’re cajoling him to play the song he can’t stop playing (specifically, The Last Bison’s “Quill”) and, moreover, to have the reluctant Kateri learn it.

Kateri protests that she’s not a singer.

Amziah, however, isn’t having that; to him, everybody is a singer and “you just gotta drop some of that armor you got on ya.” As he tells her, “this is just music,” but it’s also a lot more than that.

At the kitchen table, he teaches her the simple wordless melody of the tune’s chorus.

A smile dawns on her face, born from the realization that they’re all impressed—and, additionally, that “it’s just us,” so it doesn’t matter how professional she sounds.