“Desperation leads to dangerous choices.”
The Dirty South (2023), directed by Matthew Yerby, unfolds as a slow-burning crime thriller set in a fading Southern town where legacy, loyalty, and desperation collide. At its center is Sue Parker, played with raw tenacity by Willa Holland, a bartender whose family bar is slipping away due to her father’s neglect. When a charming stranger drifts into town—portrayed with slippery charisma by Shane West—Sue sees him as a possible way out. What begins as a simple act of survival soon descends into a volatile mix of larceny, betrayal, and irreversible choices.
The film’s strength lies in its atmosphere: a gritty, dust-choked portrait of small-town decay where moral lines blur quickly and every decision carries weight. Yerby doesn’t rush the narrative. Instead, he lets tension simmer, crafting a sense of looming consequence that mirrors the suffocating heat of the Southern backdrop. While some viewers might find the pacing uneven, others will appreciate its deliberate rhythm, echoing the slow unraveling of Sue’s world.
Willa Holland’s performance anchors the film. She doesn’t play Sue as a victim, but as a woman forced to negotiate power and vulnerability in real time. Her transformation—from someone trying to preserve the past to someone who realizes she may need to destroy it to survive—feels earned. Shane West and Dermot Mulroney round out a solid supporting cast, each contributing to the film’s sense of creeping danger and emotional ambiguity.
Though it doesn’t reinvent the Southern noir genre, The Dirty South carves out its own space through mood, character, and the slow corrosion of hope. It’s a film about people backed into corners, and what they’re willing to become when there’s nowhere left to turn.