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A Movie About Being Cool Shouldn’t Be This Uptight
How is The Bikeriders, in which Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, and Tom Hardy are in a biker love triangle, so emotionally constipated?
The Bikeriders is about a love triangle tucked into the larger tale of the rise of the Vandals, a motorcycle club, and its decline into criminality as the ’60s give way to the disillusioned ’70s — an arc with a tragic grandeur that writer-director Jeff Nichols appears to be embarrassed by. He’s gone on to cast Shannon in all of his films — in The Bikeriders, he’s a colorful Vandal named Zipco — including his second (and best) feature Take Shelter, in which the actor plays a man racked with anxieties about protecting his family that manifest in apocalyptic dreams. That’s not Comer’s fault — she’s phenomenal in the role, more than holding her own against an unprecedented ensemble of aspiring and current internet boyfriends, and alternately salty and vulnerable as a woman who’s constantly surprised to find herself drifting toward the outskirts of society.
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