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Meek's Cutoff
| Released |
15 April 2011 |
| Director |
Kelly Reichardt |
Starring
|
Michelle Williams, Shirley Henderson, Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan |
| Writer(s) |
Jonathan Raymond |
Producer(s)
|
Elizabeth Cuthrell, David Urrutia, Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
104 minutes |
| Genre |
Western |
| Rating |
PG |
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Slow Old West.
Meek’s Cutoff opens with a wide shot of a river somewhere along the Oregon Trail. The year is 1845. A party of covered wagons approach form the east and slowly make their way across. They unload their gear and carry it across separately, they wash their clothes and fill up on water for the road ahead. There is no dialogue, no music, just the rush of flowing water, the creak of wagon wheels, the wind in the grass. It is sublimely artistic, but also kind of boring.
It also sets up what is to come pretty well. While the film is beautifully shot in a truly majestic setting, the plot doesn’t exactly rise to match this greatness. Meek’s Cutoff is slow and tense, and for 101 minutes not a whole lot happens. The film is dry and airless, just like its setting, with little relief or exception made for the audience. As the wagon train gradually runs out of water so too does the audience run out of patience.
Not that it is a bad film. There is some strong acting on show as well as some artistic directing. Michelle Williams and Will Patton make the most of their roles as husband and wife who have literally bet their whole lives on travelling into the unknown to find a better life. They both give nuanced and heartrending performances as ordinary people in an increasingly desperate situation. Bruce Greenwood is also sharp as Meek, the guide leading the train on his supposed shortcut (“Meek’s Cutoff”) who comes across as totally unreliable. When the pilgrims start questioning why they ever trusted Meek, you are already wondering the same thing.
Meek’s Cutoff is definitely an attempt at the realistic western, and no doubt the slow pace and sparse dialogue reflects the reality of the time. However is it too much to ask that a film be somewhat entertaining as well as accurate? The ending is massively unsatisfying, but it is a relief just to be out of the confined atmosphere of the film. It is commendable that director Kelly Reichardt could make somewhere as open as the American west feel claustrophobic, the down side is that the resulting film is a bit uncomfortable to watch.
- Bernard O’Rourke |
