Rodeo: this meandering biker movie never quite kicks into gear

Lola Quivoron’s Rodeo begins with people yelling at each other; in medias res, of course, so it’s unclear why they’re so furious. This obliqueness, clearly meant to be artful and unmediated, instead inhibits any deeper understanding of the characters or settings we are meant to be engrossed by.

Just as a shaky camera can be a cliché shortcut to express distress, immediacy, harrowing action, and/or on-the-ground realism, films like Rodeo prove that the minimalism of ‘slow cinema’ can also function as a fig leaf for maladroit attempts at signifying profundity. Although the label ‘slow cinema’ is itself clumsy, blunting the contours of different cultures’ aesthetics and relationship to time, evasive silence in movies is sometimes exactly that: a way to hide how little a particular film has to say. And in amongst the shouting, Rodeo has its fair share of evasive silences.

Not that Rodeo’s premise – which has to do with what it means to be a woman in an all-male space – lacks promise. Julia (a perpetually dishevelled Julie Ledru) loves motorbikes and has a knack for stealing them. After scamming a middle-aged dad who made the mistake of posting his bike on Craigslist, she zooms onto a stretch of road and encounters the B-Mores, a group of male bikers.

Without any real entrée into conversation, she conspicuously hangs around, and then the cops show up, biker Abra (Dave Nsaman) sustains a concussion after falling off his bike, and, almost immediately, he is unplugged from life support. Soon he begins haunting Julia’s dreams. Sometimes his touch leaves marks on her; other times, he moves her around the room. These magical-realist sequences are among the richest the film has to offer, imparting a level of discomfort and depth that the grinding realism fails to. The unwanted control Abra exerts over her body suggests that, had Abra lived, his initial kindness might have given way to something grabbier and more aggressive.

Given the behaviour of the surviving B-Mores, it wouldn’t be surprising. While they are willing to ride and die for each other, Julia mainly remains an outsider, alternately a piece of ass to be degraded, and a suspicious intruder. The moments where she isn’t treated horribly are fleeting, and have an uneasiness that goes beyond what is spoken. But because she endures the abuse – something none of the B-Mores subject each other to – the moments of peace last a little longer each time, and Julia gradually gains a function in the group: she becomes a tool that can be used to pilfer more bikes.

It’s at this point she meets Domino (Sébastien Schroeder), the jailed leader of the B-Mores. Despite being physically separated from his wife Ophélie (played by the film’s co-writer Antonia Buresi), he still manages to abuse and control nearly every aspect of her life. In exchange for being allowed to sleep in his garage, which functions as a motorbike chop shop, Julia is put in charge of buying groceries for Ophélie and son Kylian (Cody Schroeder), who are not allowed any money of their own.

On one errand, Julia bonds with both of them. These moments of hesitant tenderness are the only reprieve from the ambient tension between Julia, Domino, and the B-Mores; unfortunately, they are also clichés of what a ‘fun day out’ sequence might look like. Such scenes play like half-hearted attempts to peel back the layers of our young protagonist.

Dreams, in both meanings of the word, collide at the end, when Julia’s dream heist – one set in her former neighbourhood, where the opening-scene screaming took place – gets the okay from Domino. This elaborately coordinated theft leads to an interpersonal (and metaphysical) combustion, and though some poetic visuals ensue, the ultimate denouement involving Ophélie and Kylian comes off as facile.

Balancing the mystical with the quotidian is a fine art, one that may come later to first-time feature director Quivoron; in Rodeo, she goes too heavy on the deliberate narrative obscurity. Still, Ledru’s presence is haunting; perhaps a more experienced director might have harnessed her distinctive energy with more intention and control.

► Rodeo is in UK cinemas now.