SXSW's "Rock Springs" is a Ghost Story Lost in Its Own Fog

The Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas are two of the largest film festivals in North America, taking place just over a month apart. By taking place so early in the year, both these events showcase all the new films that the world will be talking about for the next 365 days. Unsurprisingly, their proximity allows them to often screen a lot of the same films, Sundance for their world premieres and SXSW for their "Texas premieres." One Sundance film that made its Texas debut this week was Vera Miao's Rock Springs, a Chinese American ghost story about grief that unfortunately fell short despite its giant potential.

Rock Springs is a modern ghost story that follows the life of Gracie, a young girl who has moved to Rock Springs, Wyoming after the recent death of her father. Starring Kelly Marie Tran, Benedict Wong, Jimmy O. Yang, Fiona Fu, and Aria Kim, it is the feature directorial debut of filmmaker, Vera Miao.

To understand Rock Springs, you'll have to be familiar with some obscure, buried history as well as some Chinese cultural practices. The film's setting and namesake Rock Springs, Wyoming, is a former mining town most well known for the 1885 Rock Springs massacre. This was an extreme racially-motivated hate crime where European settlers ended up murdering dozens of Chinese immigrant miners. It is estimated that at least 28 miners were killed although some sources think the number might be as high as 50. In the film, the spirits of these miners still haunt the forests of Rock Springs as "egui" or "hungry ghosts."

At last night's screening, director Vera Miao described herself as a "proud child of immigrants" who wanted to tell a story that spoke to her experience as a member of the Chinese diaspora. As a fellow first generation American, I couldn't wait to see what Rock Springs had in store, especially after missing it at Sundance this year. While I admire Miao's ambition and honesty, I couldn't help but find the movie to be one of SXSW's weaker selections this year.

Rock Springs is an ambitious film that despite having supernatural elements, is rooted in the very real experience of grief. As someone who has gone through a lot of familial loss, I was eager to see how Miao and company would handle this subject, especially in a horror context. Unfortunately any merit this film has is marred by its glacial pacing, disorganization, and inability to keep audiences' attention despite its strong cast.

Kelly Marie Tran is great in this film. Under the direction of Vera Miao, this is easily a career highlight for her, but not even Tran could help save this script. I wish that same attention to acting was extended to child actor, Aria Kim who despite having the most screen time, has less than ten lines which are all abysmally delivered. Normally child actors are given a pass for not giving great performances but after Owen Cooper's Emmy-winning performance last year in Adolescence, the standards are getting higher and this doesn't cut it.

Rock Springs is well shot and acted by most of the cast but during the screening, I couldn't help myself from constantly checking the time on my phone. The ending feels nonsensical, unearned, and astonishingly out-of-place. There are some well-done elements here, but none of them stop Rock Springs from feeling like a first feature, which it is.

As someone who had never heard of the Rock Springs Massacre, this film opened my eyes to yet another embarrassing piece of American history not taught in schools. There are flickers of brilliance in Rock Springs that just weren't able to become fully realized. But despite my disappointment, I have faith that Vera Miao will deliver something better on future projects. While Rock Springs isn't an unsalvageable mess, it'll definitely be one of the easier projects to skip this festival season.