Trauma and disappointment drive us apart.
If we’re lucky, the nagging desire for closure might prompt a reunion.
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| Cal (Owen Teague) thinks that bringing an elderly, arthritic horse to upstate New York is a crazy idea, but his half-sister Erin (Haley Lu Richardson) is adamant: She wants the horse to accompany her back home. |
The often wrenching angst is driven by nuanced performances from Owen Teague and Haley Lu Richardson, as estranged half-siblings brought together as morose, somewhat reluctant witnesses to a crucial passing. The tone is relentlessly somber, the pacing just this side of glacial (likely too slow, for some viewers.)
The story begins as twentysomething Cal (Teague) returns to the family home and ranch in the big-sky landscape of Montana’s Paradise Valley. He has been summoned by tragedy: A stroke has rendered his father comatose and dependent upon life support and the patient attention of a full-time caregiver (Gilbert Owuor, as Ace).
The homecoming is far from comfortable, and Cal never comes close to rushing to his father’s bedside; he’s perfect content to leave ministration in the hands of Ace, a Kenyan immigrant who — no doubt a veteran of such vigils — likely is familiar with prickly family dynamics. Ace isn’t the slightest bit judgmental; Owuor radiates kindness, sympathy and understanding.
Cal is easily distracted by the mountain of mortgage debt and creditors’ statements that have long been ignored (nor does this surprise him). There’s also the matter of Mr. T, an arthritic, 25-year-old black stallion kept in the barn and cared for by Native American housekeeper Valentina (Kimberly Guerrero) and her adult son Joey (Asivak Koostachin), once a childhood friend of Erin and Cal’s.
The multi-ethnic casting is deliberate. We get a sense that Cal’s father’s many sins — unspoken and mostly unacknowledged, until the third act — include racism, and that Cal may have inherited enough of this tendency to be instinctively uncomfortable in Ace and Valentina’s presence … while simultaneously struggling against such knee-jerk behavior, in an effort to be a better, fair-minded person.
All of this remains unspoken; we infer and deduce such details, and likely back-story, via Teague’s thoughtful, richly layered acting. This is one of those cases where viewers’ likely unfamiliarity with his previous work — some may recognize him from the recent TV miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand — is an advantage, because it allows Teague to more easily become Cal. It’s not merely a performance; we recognize that this could be somebody living next door.
Cal begins the herculean task of restoring order from chaos, and closing the ranch down, while trying not to be overwhelmed, or distracted by occasional glances at his father. Such plans go completely awry with the arrival of his half-sister Erin (Richardson): not merely unexpected, but astonishing.
Whereas Cal’s return to this house had been characterized by the mildly jarring disconnect of once-familiar surroundings that have become alien, Erin’s tense posture bespeaks wariness and dread. If she were a dog, her hackles would be up. Richardson’s twitchy body language radiates anxiety and uncertainty, like a victim reluctantly returning to the scene of a crime.
Cal’s efforts to engage her in conversation are met with monosyllabic replies leavened with stilted formality. It’s clear, from Cal’s expression, that he knows what the problem is — the long-ago something that drove a wedge between them — but feels that it’s not his place to broach the subject. The first move must come from Erin.
The narrative subsequently moves through a series of quirky little set-pieces, some of them brief mini-movies in their own right. Erin becomes distraught over Cal’s intention to put Mr. T down, and — practically in a panic — insists that she’ll bring the horse along when she returns to New York. This prompts a trip to a local reservation, where the siblings negotiate the sale of a dilapidated pickup truck and horse trailer from a Mohican named Mukki (a brief but marvelous appearance by charismatic character actor Eugene Brave Rock).
The dialogue here is note-perfect, with all three trying not to be influenced by class divide and a long history of racial animus. Even so, we wonder: Are they insulting Mukki by closely examining and tinkering with the engine? His helpfully compliant manner notwithstanding, is he taking advantage of them?
The resulting tension and mild suspense is palpable: We’re on the edge of the seat, wondering if the damn pickup will run for more than 15 minutes.
Another interlude is just this side of existential, as Cal and Erin stare into a huge hole in the earth: the product of some failed collaboration between their father and a mining corporation. Erin suddenly begins to compare her childhood life, back in That House, to the various circles of Hell as envisioned within Dante’s Inferno (a rare case where McGehee and Siegel’s dialogue seems too contrived and on the nose, to be authentic to the moment).
Ultimately, this is a study of long-ago decisions and mistakes that people make, and whether it’s possible to move beyond their consequences. (In the press notes, McGehee and Siegel point to earlier, star-driven character melodramas Hud and Home from the Hill as key inspirations.)
Unfortunately, our mind wanders when the pacing is this slow, and we inevitably focus on — and question — sidebar issues that McGehee and Siegel don’t sufficiently address.
(That said, for a Covid production — tiny cast, minimal settings — they’ve done a reasonably good job.)
Giles Nuttgens’ gorgeous cinematography turns the region’s blustery, late-autumn panorama into a character in its own right: a vast, open landscape that affords no emotional concealment to those trying to escape their past.
Answers do eventually surface; whether they justify this laboriously sluggish journey, will depend upon the individual viewer.
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