Based on real events, the story follows a father and son (Nick Offerman and Jacob Tremblay) who identify as Sovereign Citizens, a group of anti-government extremists, as they venture across the country and find themselves in a standoff with a chief of police (Dennis Quaid) that sets off an intense manhunt with tragic consequences.
Sovereign is the directorial debut of Christian Swegal, and as the film releases on VOD platforms in Australia, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the director about the narrative decisions taken to tell this traumatic true story, and finding the empathetic entry points into the darker aspects of these characters.
Nick: You make an interesting choice to tell this story through the lens of Jacob Tremblay’s character. And the son’s perspective really goes through this loss of innocence, the naivety of childhood. I’m curious to know what made you land on that narrative perspective?
Christian Swegal: Yeah, I felt like because it does deal with a kind of political subject matter, but we were trying to make a film that wasn’t strictly about politics, we were trying to make a film about the human elements. So, that perspective I think lends neutrality, which I think is important.
And then, really from the first moment I heard about the crime, I found it compelling the idea of doing a coming of age story within an environment like this, because there are a lot of kids in this country that… you know, at that age, at times your biggest source of information and a filter for what’s right or wrong in the world, are parents. So, that felt like a compelling angle to take on that for the central relationship in the film.
Nick: At what point in writing this story did that also extend to Thomas Mann’s character, who is also a son, but on the other side of the ideological spectrum this movie investigates?
Christian Swegal: I think the parallel between both sets of fathers and sons is a way to explore how the same type of masculinity exists on both sides of the government or politics. I guess you could say that Thomas Mann’s character’s relationship between him and Dennis Quaid represents the government persons. They’re kind of a traditional family. And then you have the anti-government perspective. And even though they’re different in their ideologies, I think there is still a very masculine drive to have authority, to have agency, to conquer, to exert this dominance. There is a masculine drive to both fathers.
Nick: It’s such an interesting way to explore these events. I found the almost antagonistic relationship between father and son, with Jacob and Nick Offerman, really riveting too. There’s so many times where it becomes a leader and student relationship instead. How did you work with both of them to develop that sort of tense chemistry?
Christian Swegal: Yeah, I think that is the core of Jacob’s character. He’s at an age where he is starting to form his own ideas and have his own perspective on the world. And I guess that was kind of my experience growing up, where you look up to your dad as this person who is all authority until you’re a teenager, and then you start to realise maybe you don’t agree with some of the stuff they’re saying, or maybe it’s extremely limiting to your life in some way. I think to break away from that is very natural for the character, and that all of us can relate too. It was just very extreme in that circumstance.
Nick: I get that too. I grew up in the Baptist church, and while I never met anyone who took their beliefs to the extreme that Jerry did, I knew charismatic religious leaders who kind of had that “cult-ish” appeal. How did your understanding or research into extremist religious leaders build the character for Nick to play?
Christian Swegal: There’s quite a bit of stuff out there, videos of Jerry Kane’s seminars, police records, academic profiles on this case that were written as like a case study in extremism. There was a lot of research available.
How much of that Nick internalised, I don’t know. But we tried to stay as close to reality as we could with the real story of Jerry and his son. I think we got some things right, but in terms of how much that informed Nick’s process, I’m not too sure.
Whether or not you want to agree with what this guy was saying, and obviously we can’t condone the crime, but I do think it’s true that he loved his son, and I think that was something Nick did try to hold on to.
Nick: When did you come across the real story of Jerry Kane, and the events of the 2010 West Memphis shooting?
Christian Swegal: I had a family member who had a mental health issue, and they became really involved in the anti-government conspiracy stuff. And in researching that, and trying to understand what it was all about, I came across this crime that I hadn’t heard of at the time. It was terrible and very sad, but it hooked me, and then looking into the sovereign citizen movement became something that I thought would make a really compelling film.
Nick: I found some irony in the idea that this sovereign citizen movement, which in this story has a strong correlation with religion, is so against government laws and ruling, yet they follow the laws of an ancient book. Was that something you found as well researching and writing this film?
Christian Swegal: Yeah, I found that in researching sovereign citizens, a lot of these anti-government movements honestly felt more like religious movements rather than political ones. In many ways it felt more like a cult than a political ideology. It was like Jerry was a travelling preacher, evangelising. But, instead of the bible, they were using the US constitution to come up with their own self styled sort of beliefs.
Nick: There is a moment where this film really does take a dark tonal turn, and that is when Jerry is doing his presentation, and he says the word “kill”. As a writer, how important is emphasising the power of words?
Christian Swegal: I think as soon as you introduce violence, that becomes a threat. And Jerry talks a lot about conquering, and there is this certain connotation when he’s talking about conquering, even if it’s just a mortgage payment or getting the deed to your house, that is one sort of thing. But, when he goes on this biblical riff of killing people’s wives and their sheep and their babies, that’s when we go to a much darker place.
Thank you so much to Christian for his time, and the NedCo PR for organising the interview. Sovereign is now available to rent or buy on various VOD platforms in Australia.
