A24 has released the Woman Walks Ahead trailer. Based on true events, the story follows widowed artist Catherine Weldon (Jessica Chastain) who travels alone to North Dakota to paint a portrait of Chief Sitting Bull (Michael Greyeyes), but finds herself in the middle of a conflict between the Lakota tribe and the US Army.

Judging by the trailer, the film doesn’t look bad as much as it looks kind of tired and done. It has talented actors, but I’m left wondering why we don’t just get a Sitting Bull movie and why this story has to be told from the perspective of a white character. Yes, audience surrogates are important, but they can also be supporting characters. That’s not to say Woman Walks Ahead will be a bad movie (although it didn’t really make waves when it played at TIFF last year) as much as it could easily be a forgettable one.

Check out the Woman Walks Ahead trailer below. The film hits DirecTV on May 31st and opens in theaters on June 29th. Woman Walks Ahead also stars Sam Rockwell.

Here’s the official synopsis for Woman Walks Ahead:

Based on true events, Woman Walks Ahead tells the story of Catherine Weldon (Jessica Chastain), a widowed artist from New York who, in the 1880s, traveled alone to North Dakota to paint a portrait of Chief Sitting Bull (Michael Greyeyes). Her arrival at Standing Rock is welcomed with open hostility by a US Army officer (Sam Rockwell), who has stationed troops around the Lakota reservation to undermine Native American claims to the land. As Catherine and Sitting Bull grow closer, and as their friendship—and his life—are threatened by imperious government forces, Catherine must contend with the violence that underlies her position.

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