First Cow

Dir. Kelly Reinhardt 121 Minutes

USA

2019

Starring: John Majaro, Ewen Bremner, Lily Gladstone, Toby Jones, Rene Auberjonois, Orion Lee, Alia Shawkat

***1/2/***** First Cow has Kelly Reichardt returning to the American West of Meek's Cutoff (though a few decades before the action of that film), shifting her focus from the women of the Oregon Territory to a more intimate story of two men. "Cookie" Figowitz (John Magaro) is a quiet addition to a group of fur trappers, but only finds connection with Chinese immigrant King Lu (Orion Lee). King muses about various ways to make money, and the two embark on a business venture which requires the secret milking of a wealthy British landowners cow (Toby Jones). While First Cow has Reichardt remaining within the confines of her usual interests of friendship and human relations with the natural against the wide American landscape, the film is somewhat more playful and comical than her previous works, especially in the ways Cookie and King need to conduct the backstage efforts of their capital from the English. However, her usual mood is evident from the start, slowly following a contemporary girl (Alia Shawkat, one of the only women in the entire piece) as she finds a pair of skeletons in a hole in the ground: a ominous cloud that hangs above even the lightest of moments. And she so marvelously finds tension solely through that prologue, to the point where the way the film concludes is a bit of a surprise. In personal experience, Reichardt films do not always work entirely well and works like Meek's Cutoff, Certain Women, and Old Joy have lovely images and mood but strip their narratives down to nearly the point of nothing. While the narrative here has little fat, there is a feeling of constant momentum, aided by a surprisingly wide ensemble that feels full of personality even when only given a modicum of characteristic. The trading post feels lived in, the world inhabited by people and not sketches. The aspect ratio choice only heightens the intimacy of these two men, and in the end it is just so lovely to finally give them a moment of piece before the inevitable.  ​September 28th, 2019