From acclaimed director Kelly Reichardt (WENDY AND LUCY, OLD JOY), is a stark and poetic drama set in 1845, the earliest days of the treacherous Oregon Trail. A wagon train of three families has hired mountain man Stephen Meek to guide them over the Cascade Mountains. Claiming to know a shortcut, Meek leads the group on an unmarked path across the high plain desert, only to become lost in the dry rock and sage. Over the coming days, the emigrants must face the scourges of hunger, thirst, and their own lack of faith in each others’ instincts for survival. When a Native American wanderer crosses their path, the emigrants are torn between their trust in a guide who has proven himself unreliable and a man who has always been seen as their natural born enemy.
To set aside its many other accomplishments, “Meek’s Cutoff” is the first film I’ve seen that evokes what must have been the reality of wagon trains to the West. “Meek’s Cutoff” is more an experience than a story. It has personality conflicts, but isn’t about them. The suspicions and angers of the group are essentially irrelevant to their overwhelming reality. Reichardt has the courage to establish that. She doesn’t make it easy for us with simplistic character conflict. She’s genuinely curious about the hardly-educated pioneers who were brave, curious or hopeful enough to set out on such a dangerous journey. – Roger Ebert
Starring Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton, Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan.
Rated PG.