Two women’s escape from the law takes on racial undertones in a thriller that veers boldly from humorous to harrowing
South African masculinity does not come off at all well in this off-kilter drama, which pits an improbable number of gender, race and class tensions against each other but remains watchable throughout. Set in the striking, desolate landscape of the Karoo desert outside Cape Town, it’s a Thelma and Louise-like tale of two
Women on the run from predatory menfolk, although the cop pursuing them is another woman with her own man-related issues. Nobody’s hands are particularly clean.
It’s clear from the opening wedding scene between poor, beautiful Natalie (Nicole Fortuin), who is Black, and awkward white cop Bakkies that this is not a match made in heaven. Things don’t improve on their wedding night, which ends in a rape and a killing, with Natalie fleeing the scene on horseback in her blood-stained wedding dress. She seeks sanctuary with her wayward white “sister” Poppie (Izel Bezuidenhout), who is eight months pregnant but still up for some outlaw high-jinks. They are not actually sisters: Natalie’s mother worked as a nanny for Poppie’s, so their relationship is strained from the outset.