In Christian Swegal’s quietly haunting directorial debut Sovereign, the narrative weaves itself around a dangerous ideology disguised as righteousness, generational anger masked as legacy, and the slow unraveling of a bond between a father and son bound more by fear and belief than by genuine love. At the heart of the film lies Jerry Kane, portrayed with unnerving precision by Nick Offerman, a man who once may have been just another angry outlier on the fringes of society. But now, in a landscape where extremist voices no longer whisper from the sidelines but shout from podiums and podcasts, Jerry’s voice is amplified—and so is his impact.
Jerry isn’t your typical villain. A former roofer from Arkansas, he doesn’t roam the country in shadows. Instead, he takes to stages, microphones, and radios, sharing what he claims are survival tactics against a corrupt system. His targets? Government institutions, banks, public education—all the structures he believes are plotting against the common man. On the surface, he resembles a folk hero to the disillusioned. But beneath the rhetoric lies a storm brewing—and it’s one that even he cannot control.
His teenage son Joe, played with aching subtlety by Jacob Tremblay, is the emotional compass of the film. As we follow Joe’s journey, it becomes apparent that Sovereign is less about Jerry’s defiance and more about the emotional toll of inherited ideology. It is Joe who receives the eviction notice when authorities knock on their door. It is Joe who stands silent in the face of another catastrophe. And it is Joe who begins to question everything.
The film opens not with political speeches or montages of small-town Americana, but with chaos. A frantic 911 call reveals that law enforcement officers have been gunned down in broad daylight. The assailant has vanished. This brutal, jarring moment throws us into a world where violence and ideology have already collided. What follows is a slow unspooling of the events that led there.
Swegal’s screenplay doesn’t explicitly name any political parties, and yet Sovereign is deeply political. By leaving names like Trump out of the dialogue, the film achieves something far more insidious—it makes these ideas feel timeless, as if they could arise in any era where fear trumps reason. Jerry’s worldview, while extreme, is recognizable. His distrust in institutions mirrors real-world frustrations that transcend party lines. But while many people vent their grievances through conversation, protest, or vote, Jerry’s solution is to pretend the system doesn’t exist at all. And when that doesn’t work, he escalates.
Offerman’s Jerry isn’t a caricature. He’s frighteningly grounded. He believes in what he says. He sees himself as a freedom fighter, not a criminal. His son Joe, meanwhile, is trapped in the echo chamber his father built. Jerry homeschools Joe not out of academic rigor but because he doesn’t trust the school system. He tells his son what to think, how to dress, and who the enemy is. In one chilling moment, Jerry takes Joe on his speaking tour, dressing him in a white suit, feeding him platitudes like “They’re calling you the young genius,” and expecting him to perform on stage like a trained mascot. What appears to be a bonding experience is really a grooming session. Jerry isn’t preparing Joe for life—he’s preparing him for battle.
Yet Joe is not entirely under his father’s spell. Tremblay’s performance is restrained, but every gesture, every glance, carries weight. Joe wants to be a normal kid. He watches the girl next door with longing, contemplates going back to school, and hesitates when his father rants about revolution. There’s a crack forming in the foundation Jerry built, and through that crack, sunlight is trying to pour in. Tremblay captures that quiet resistance beautifully. He doesn’t shout or rebel outright—he withdraws, his body language and soft-spoken demeanor reflecting a soul caught between obedience and awakening.
Swegal is careful not to glorify Jerry. While the film initially gives Jerry’s perspective some breathing room—highlighting, for instance, how distrust in government and financial institutions is a bipartisan frustration—it never fully endorses his worldview. The script doesn’t make Jerry a martyr or a misunderstood genius. Instead, it slowly peels away the layers, showing how his steadfast refusal to acknowledge authority is less about principles and more about control. By refusing to negotiate with the bank, Jerry doesn’t protect his home—he condemns his son to homelessness.
The father-son dynamic at the core of Sovereign is mirrored by another pair—Detective John Bouchart (Dennis Quaid) and his son Adam (Thomas Mann). They serve as a quieter, more conventional foil to Jerry and Joe. John is a stern, emotionally distant cop who raises Adam with a similarly rigid sense of right and wrong. In one unnerving scene, Adam is shown in police training, learning chokehold techniques and the psychology of escalation. “From compliance to control to incapacitation,” the instructor says. It’s not just about protecting society—it’s about dominating it.
Here, the film draws a subtle parallel between two types of authority: one that’s rogue and self-declared (Jerry), and one that’s state-sanctioned (John). Both fathers instill their sons with uncompromising masculinity. Both prize control over compassion. And both, in their own way, fail their children. Though the Bouchart thread is less fully explored than Jerry and Joe’s, it adds dimension to the narrative, underscoring how toxic values can manifest on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.
Visually, Sovereign is a quiet masterpiece. Dustin Lane’s cinematography is deliberately unflashy, allowing the small details to speak volumes. We see Joe’s world not in washed-out greys, but in subdued pastels—light blues, pale maroons, and dusty whites—signaling not just emotional detachment but a world that is losing its color. The family’s front yard is filled with discarded furniture, a subtle metaphor for lives lived halfway, ideas abandoned mid-thought, and a household stuck in time. In contrast, the home of Joe’s crush is neat, modern, and inviting—a symbol of the life that could be his if he chooses a different path.
The film’s pacing is slow but never sluggish. There’s an oppressive calm that hovers over the narrative, a constant sense that something terrible is about to happen. As Jerry’s rhetoric becomes more vitriolic—his town hall speeches begin to reference murder and violent rebellion—the tension escalates. His transformation from misinformed agitator to radical leader is gradual but inevitable. And yet, the film avoids spectacle. When the climax comes, it feels like a tragic prophecy fulfilled rather than a shocking twist.
What’s most harrowing about Sovereign is its sense of inevitability. Swegal wants us to understand that men like Jerry don’t just appear—they are built, piece by piece, by disappointment, ego, isolation, and fear. And their children often bear the cost. Joe, though the film’s quiet protagonist, is a tragic figure. He is the one who will be left behind to pick up the pieces, to mourn the father who never really saw him as a person but as a legacy.
The supporting cast adds rich texture to the story. Martha Plimpton brings a necessary jolt of energy as Lesley Anne, a former flame of Jerry’s who briefly offers financial and emotional support. Her character is not just a narrative detour but a glimpse into the kind of life Jerry could have had if he weren’t so obsessed with being right. Lesley Anne’s presence is a momentary reprieve from the film’s creeping darkness, but her eventual exit serves as another signpost toward disaster.
Dennis Quaid, though underutilized, plays Detective Bouchart with quiet menace. His belief in discipline and stoicism is not as loud as Jerry’s preaching, but it’s just as rigid. His interactions with his son Adam suggest a man who doesn’t just live by the rules—he is ruled by them. And Thomas Mann, as Adam, captures the internal conflict of a man caught between wanting to please his father and wanting to be a father himself.
In the end, Sovereign isn’t a story about politics—it’s a story about people. About sons trying to escape the gravitational pull of their fathers. About communities clinging to myths. About what happens when ideology becomes identity. And about the quiet, painful moments that lead people toward destruction.
Swegal’s decision to root the story in realism, to draw inspiration from true events without sensationalizing them, gives the film an eerie resonance. It doesn’t feel like fiction. It feels like a warning. The kind of story you could imagine seeing in the news tomorrow. Or yesterday.
As the credits roll, one can’t help but feel a mixture of grief and helplessness. Grief for Joe, who never asked for this life. Helplessness at a system that creates people like Jerry and then feeds them further lies. But amidst that despair is also a flicker of hope. Hope that children like Joe will find a way to break free. That they will choose empathy over fear. That they will reclaim their futures.“Sovereign” may not be the loudest film of the year, but it is among the most important. It doesn’t scream. It simmers. And in doing so, it lingers long after the screen fades to black.
