“Sovereign” Questions What it Means to Be Free
Christian Swegal’s Sovereign is based on true events from 2010, but it’s frightening to reckon with the fact that we haven’t learned much in the fifteen years between the real story and this retelling. Sovereign is a film born out of a desperation that has been brewing in the American public for decades. More than a time capsule of a period of economic uncertainty, Sovereign looks at the dynamic between two sets of fathers and sons and how this relationship can twist itself into something dark.
Thousands of people lost their homes and livelihoods as a result of the financial collapse of 2008. In times of great upheaval like that, someone always claims to have the answers. In Sovereign, that someone is Jerry Kane (Nick Offerman), a member of the Sovereign Citizens group. Their anti-government, anti-establishment beliefs lead them to believe they do not need to participate in things like driver’s licenses because they have indisputable rights as citizens. Jerry travels the country to host seminars about sovereign citizenry, addressing topics like how to fight back against a bank foreclosing on a home. While he’s often left alone, Jerry’s son, Joe (Jacob Tremblay), has been raised with these ideals. He’s homeschooled by Jerry and can effortlessly recite the Bill of Rights, but a part of him clearly craves the routine and regularity that come from being a part of society. It turns out that Joe and Jerry are not safe from the economic downturn. Their house is being foreclosed on, and as the thirty days dwindle down, the tensions and stakes rise for father and son.
courtesy of Tribeca
It takes a gentle hand to look at Joe and Jerry, who ultimately murder police officers at a routine traffic stop, and not immediately write them off as brainwashed members of an organization that cannot save them from their predicament, no matter how much it claims to be able to do exactly that. What Sovereign recognizes is that many people, all around the world, are only one large, negative life event away from losing their livelihood. At that point, when all seems lost, people will turn to anyone and anything to find some means of clawing themselves out of the hole they’ve fallen into. Entire communities exist on the fringes, and while Sovereign isn’t excusing the actions of the Kanes, it does ask the viewer to think about how they would act in times of such desperation. A society that has billionaires while others can’t afford food is a society that is broken. Sovereign doesn’t advocate for the beliefs of the Sovereign Citizens organization, but it does show how we got here and how this is not an isolated moment of violence that resulted in four deaths. This type of ire is bubbling in every single city across the United States, the whole world even, and violence is inevitable unless our politicians enact meaningful change that helps those who have been left behind.
The final act of violence that Sovereign is building toward is quite restrained. Much like 2023’s The Zone of Interest, the horror of the realities on display is their banality. Jerry and Joe move from one rundown motel in the middle of America to another. The scenery is the boring, cut-and-paste world of suburban sprawl and its fading strip malls. The mundanity of it all is what hammers home the point of Sovereign. That humans are inherently pulled toward a sense of community in times of trouble, but that it’s easy for that lifeline to be rotting from the inside out. While there are moments where one would hope the film could’ve taken more definitive, damning stands, Sovereign looks at extremists where there are. The ones on the fringes and the ones behind the police badges are both trying to mold the next generation to continue on with the ideals they believe in. We all are, but Sovereign focuses on masculinity’s toxic role in parenting the next generation of men.
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