Rodeo

A very difficult film, but a slice of life I didn't know before.

“Rodeo” takes its blind corners and open roads with plenty of ferocity, but also a necessary compassion for the searching force of nature at its center.

Rodeo is engaging and gritty, but what makes the whole film hold together overall is Ledru.

There are undercurrents of danger, desire, and unpredictability in Rodeo even beyond the risks of street racing, with much of it rising from the combined fierceness and vulnerability of Julie Ledru’s character and performance.

Rodeo looks like a documentary but finally makes a reckless swerve toward the mythic.

For the most part the scattered script careens around various lackluster intrigues...

Budding filmmaker Lola Quivoron's feature debut has fascinating moments and grainy beauty, but remains too austere to fully hook viewers.

As jagged as its characters, the film has its small triumphs, but the big picture doesn’t quite come together.


The thematic throughline of Rodeo deconstructs a binary of gendered actions, and the relationship between Julie and Ophélie, though intentionally ambiguous, grounds an emotional arc for our unbound protagonist.

It's about finding a purpose beyond the status quo and the existential crisis born from being a part of a family that only fosters equality amongst those who are forced to serve. And there isn't a single inauthentic moment.