In The Rivals of Amziah King, Andrew Patterson crafts a loving portrait of an Oklahoma community around the sweet relationship between a beekeeper and his estranged foster daughter. The director borrows from different genres — nostalgic Westerns, propulsive crime thrillers, high-stakes heist films and even musicals — to tell this winding tale about what makes a place and its people feel like home.

There’s an admirable audacity to the film, which premiered at SXSW; you can feel Patterson, who garnered critical acclaim for his slender and accomplished debut The Vast of Night, exploring new ways to tell a familiar story. But a blinkered narrative coupled with misty-eyed aesthetic choices yield a strange and scattershot result. 

The film starts on assured but sentimental footing. Patterson delivers a compelling opening sequence with the glossy finish of a music video. Trucks pull into an outdoor eatery, and out of them emerges a gaggle of musicians ready to eat and jam. Amziah King (Matthew McConaughey), a beekeeper and banjo player, is the leader of this rag-tag crew, and there’s an intentional hokiness to his dramatic entrance. Patterson shoots him low, following Amziah’s confident cowboy gait, and deploys the first of perhaps one too many slow-motion effects.

This role is perfect for McConaughey, whose last non-voice acting appearance was in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentleman. The actor seems at home in his character’s down-to-earth charm; Azmiah is something like an unofficial mayor of this small Oklahoma community — he knows everyone and helps his neighbors without judgement. 

So it makes sense when local authorities, led by Officer Sunderland (Bruce Davis), need his assistance. They have intercepted several barrels of stolen honey and want Azmiah’s help identifying their original owners. The apiarist is happy to oblige. If he can melt down the honey, he tells the cops, they can inspect the barrel for markers of ownership.

Azmiah cuts the dinner jam short (music by Erick Alexander and Jared Bulmer) and calls up some trusted comrades. An entertaining set piece that includes Tony Revolori sporting a ridiculous wig, a bloody incident, and a trip to the emergency room follow, ratcheting up the film’s tone, boosting the stakes and cutting some of the sappiness with an appealing zaniness. Patterson fills The Rivals of Amziah King with distinctive sequences like this one, in which he revels in slapstick humor and high-velocity dialogue. 

While at a local diner, waiting for his friend to receive medical care, Amziah runs into his estranged foster daughter Kateri (Angelina LookingGlass in a performance of homey authenticity). The contrived encounter can be forgiven because their reunion allows Patterson to pay sweet homage to a particular kind of Oklahoman culture. Amziah invites Kateri to jams and potlucks, advising her on which dishes to avoid and filling her in on community gossip. He teaches the young woman, isolated from the violence of foster care, how to understand the bees and harvest their honey, a premier white clover.

At its most beautiful, The Rivals of Amziah King fashions itself as a loving testament to this delicate practice. Patterson gives us many scenes of Amziah and Kateri tending to the bees and packing the honey. A side quest involving an agitated hive trapped in the walls of an elementary school is particularly gratifying in its portrayal of Amziah’s almost spiritual connection with these insects. 

The problems with The Rivals of Amziah King emerge in the stitching, when Patterson (working with editor Patrick J. Smith) must turn a series of fine vignettes and memorable musical interludes into a coherent narrative. After someone steals Amziah’s bees, the tale awkwardly shifts to focus on Kateri’s attempts to get revenge. The young woman, newly empowered by her foster father and the community into which he invites her, decides to take down the bad actors behind a string of thefts. When she finds out this operation is headed by a greedy kingpin (Kurt Russell), she enlists the help of her father’s trusted friends (Scott Shepherd and Owen Teague) and a local hacker (Cole Sprouse) to take him down.

Patterson’s film becomes shakier as the director struggles to balance the tonal requirements of a Western heist thriller. Some fussy aesthetic choices and occasionally overwrought camerawork (cinematography is by Miguel I. Litten-Menz) feel misaligned for the story, taking us out when we should be drawn in. The second part of The Rivals of Amziah King is indeed less confident, putting LookingGlass in the challenging position of carrying a story that’s not fully sure of itself. The actress does her best, and a few grounded moments signal Patterson’s skill at pulling strong performances from his actors. 

There’s likely an audience for The Rivals of Amziah King, which is still seeking distribution. Its irreverent tone and understated moments of charm reminded me of Tony Tost’s subversive Western Americana, which premiered a few years ago at SXSW and was recently acquired by Lionsgate for a summer release. Both these films, whatever their shortcomings, are driven by a heartfelt desire to see smaller stories on the big screen.