A bereaved woman seeks out a new life, off the grid in Wyoming.
Pam says:
Mother Nature can be harsh, but she can also be healing. We see both sides of her in Robin Wright’s feature directorial debut Land. Wright also stars in the film as Edee, a woman running away to the remote wilderness as a means to escape her memories of a tragedy. Her success in escaping is more difficult than she imagined as she leaves everything and everyone far behind. Ditching her cell phone and car, she stocks a newly purchased and dilapidated cabin with no amenities. Her survival knowledge and instincts prove to be less than adequate as she finds herself freezing and starving after a bear ravages her cabin. But for the kindness of a random hunter passing by, Edee would have died…but she didn’t.
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4 Stars
Chuck says:
There’s a quiet beauty to Robin Wright’s Land, a moving testament to resiliency and faith in the face of unbearable grief. Assured and subtle, there’s a confidence in the actresses’ first attempt at directing that reflects her own approach to acting, as she applies a quiet strength to a tale that requires a subtle but sure hand to succeed. Never maudlin, this is a story about finding our path to redemption on our own terms.
Running from the past, Edee (Wright) has bought a remote cabin in the wilds of Wyoming. It’s obvious to the realtor (Brad Leland) who’s brokered the deal that she’s out of her element; even stranger is when she requests he hire someone to come get her truck and trailer and drive it back to town, leaving her with no way to return. That she throws away her cellphone is another step towards complete isolation. She struggles mightily to find her footing – she has no clue as to how to cut firewood easily and as result, staying warm becomes a challenge. Hunting and fishing are skills she never learned, an oversight that becomes more urgent when a wayward bear trashes her cabin and ruins nearly all her canned goods. That the weather turns cold only stacks the odds against her and it becomes evident, she wouldn’t mind dying at all.
And before you can say “deus ex machina,” a kindly hunter passing by finds her at the point of starvation and with the help of a nurse he knows, they return her to health, a turn of events Edee initially looks upon as inconvenient. Her savior, Miguel (Damian Bichir), also has chosen a solitary existence and understands his charge much better than she realizes. Once back on her feet, Edee admits to Miguel she’d like to be left alone to die. Unable to allow this to weigh on his conscience, they strike a bargain – if she allows him to teach her how to fish and hunt, he will let her be and let the chips fall where they may.
The friendship that develops between them is not immediate; it runs in fits and starts, one step forward, two steps back, Edee, much like a beaten dog, reluctant to trust in Miguel or the permanency of anything in the cruelly random universe she finds herself living in. Ultimately boundaries are gently crossed, trust is slowly established and a genuine friendship is born. Wright renders all of this with a gentle touch; so many of the moments she and Bichir share are quiet, some shot in a seemingly incidental nature that results in an intimacy that creates a sense of eavesdropping on the viewers’ part. Sincerely rendered, the bond these two characters form and the healing they both experience feels as genuine as anything can in a fictional setting.
Thankfully, Wright and screenwriters Jesse Chatham and Erin Dignam resist the urge to take these two down the expected narrative path. Instead, the focus remains on Edee and her journey of healing, her path towards finding the strength to deal with her past and rediscovering a sense of hope in the face of insanity. There are so many ways a film like Land can go wrong, yet Wright steers this beautiful film to a genuinely satisfying conclusion without resorting to cheap melodrama or overt theatrics. Solitude, reflection and a helping hand from a kindred soul are what save Edee, pointing her towards a place where she can live in peace, strong and assured. Here’s hoping we will all find such grace if our circumstances require the same.
4 Stars
