Meek's Cutoff

Kelly Reichardt’s fourth picture represents a departure of sorts in terms of subject matter, but it is also a culmination of the stylistic and thematic preoccupations of this most distinctive American director. Like her two previous pictures, Old Joy (2006) and Wendy and Lucy (2008), it is a quiet, contemplative, minimalist tale set in Portland, Oregon and scripted by the Portland-based writer Jonathan Raymond. And, like her other films, the narrative is so spare it borders on monotonous; except that just observing the subtle interpersonal dynamics of Reichardt’s characters, and gazing at her long, spacious takes, is such an engrossing experience. But unlike her prior contemporary neo-neo-realist pictures, this is a period piece and a work of genre. Specifically, it’s part of the oldest American genre tradition – the Western.

Set in 1845, Meek’s Cutoff follows a small band of pioneers lost in the wastelands of the Oregon desert. This wagon train consists of three families who have hired a guide named Stephen Meek who claims to know a shortcut over the Cascade Mountains. But when the movie starts, Meek has led the group into the desert, with no food or water in sight. Over the coming days, the three families are drawn into various conflicts, with Meek, with each other, and with a Native American they come upon.

But conflict in an 1845 wagon train (and in a Kelly Reichardt film, for that matter) is never a long-drawn-out argument or an elaborate showdown. And what’s most fascinating about this film is how much gets expressed with so little dialogue. There’s a two-sentence exchange between husband and wife Soloman Tetherow (Will Patton) and Emily Tetherow (Michelle Williams), the most reasonable of the three couples, that sums up the extent of what an in-depth household debate might actually look like in this era and this context.

The terrific cast does as much to maintain our interested in the go-nowhere storyline (less a meandering narrative than one literally stuck in the middle of nowhere with no good outcome in sight) as does the austere yet hypnotic cinematography by Christopher Blauvelt—making the jump from director of photography after serving as camera operator on such notable films as Zodiac, Where the Wild Things Are, and Greenberg. Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano play the young, fearful Gatelys; Shirley Henderson and Neal Huff play the older, more devout and trusting Whites; and Stephen Meek himself is played by an unrecognizable Bruce Greenwood—a Canadian actor most known for playing reserved, clean-cut, establishment figures in films like The Sweet Hereafter, Being Julia, and Capote. Greenwood’s performance as the grizzled, possibly delusional mountain man is shockingly effective and intriguing.  

Meek was a real man, and knowing that this is essentially a true story could be viewed as critical to your enjoyment of the movie—or at least your understanding of its outcome. But, the point of the story isn’t where we see it go, but where we place ourselves in terms of which characters we most identify with. Like many great Westerns, Meeks’ Cutoff can be read as an allegory for contemporary times. The group’s misplaced trust in their leader and their fear of the indigenous wanderer (Rod Rondeaux) they cross paths with says as much about America in 2010 as it does about the days of the great Western expansion.