The Rivals of Amziah King Finds Music, Honey and Trouble on the Backroads of Rural America

Andrew Patterson’s The Rivals of Amziah King arrives in theaters this August with an unusual proposition: a sprawling rural drama built around beekeeping, bluegrass music, family ties and a fiercely competitive honey business.

Matthew McConaughey stars as Amziah King, a charismatic Oklahoma beekeeper, musician and local businessman who presides over both a successful honey operation and an informal community of musicians, friends and neighbors. His world is filled with trucks, potluck dinners, front-porch jams and the rhythms of agricultural life. It is also a world where business rivalries can become intensely personal.

At the center of the story is Kateri, played by newcomer Angelina LookingGlass. Amziah and his late wife fostered Kateri when she was eight years old, but the two have since become estranged. A chance encounter years later brings her back into his life, giving Amziah an opportunity to rebuild their relationship.

He begins introducing Kateri to the life he has created, bringing her to community gatherings and teaching her the intricacies of keeping bees and harvesting the prized white clover honey produced by his operation. What initially resembles a warm story about reconciliation and belonging gradually changes character as competitors begin threatening the business and the community surrounding it.

Patterson has described the rural setting as deeply connected to his own upbringing in Oklahoma and Texas. Rather than constructing an idealized version of small-town America, he drew on memories of goat farms along the road to school, feed stores selling grain and baby chicks, trains stopping traffic through town and communities where introductions quickly reveal who everyone is and how they are connected.

Another influence came from Patterson’s documentary work with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, which helped inspire his decision to build the film around a young Native American woman. He has also cited Howard Hawks’ 1948 Western Red River as a creative reference point, with Amziah King effectively turning elements of that film’s narrative structure inside out.

Although the story takes place in Oklahoma, production was based in Alabama, where Patterson and his team used rural landscapes to create the film’s agricultural world. The beehive itself becomes an important visual and thematic motif. Individual bees operate as part of something larger, much like the musicians, workers, friends and relatives who orbit Amziah.

Music is equally embedded in that world. Amziah fronts a bluegrass band, and the performances are presented as part of everyday community life rather than conventional soundtrack decoration. On August 7, Lakeshore Records released “Quill,” performed for the film by McConaughey and Ben Hardesty. McConaughey plays mandolin on the recording, while co-star Owen Teague contributes violin. The song originated with indie-folk group The Last Bison and is reworked for the film as an intimate ensemble performance.

The movie also marks McConaughey’s return to live-action feature films after several years away from the format. He is joined by a substantial ensemble that includes Kurt Russell, Rob Morgan, Owen Teague, Cole Sprouse, Scott Shepherd and Tony Revolori, while LookingGlass makes her feature acting debut as Kateri.

For Patterson, the film represents an ambitious follow-up to his acclaimed debut, The Vast of Night. Where that film was tightly controlled and formally precise, The Rivals of Amziah King is considerably larger and more unruly, moving between family drama, music, Western mythology, crime thriller and heist-film territory.

The film premiered at SXSW in March 2025 and now finally reaches American theaters, beginning with a limited release on August 14 before expanding nationwide on August 21.

What begins among honeybees, musical gatherings and Oklahoma backroads ultimately becomes something much more volatile: a story about inheritance, loyalty, community and what happens when the small world someone has spent a lifetime building suddenly comes under threat.