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Meek's Cutoff (2010)

Director: Kelly Reichardt

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28 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

The travesty of last year’s Venice Film Festival may be old news, but it bears repeating now that Kelly Reichardt’s glorious slow-burn western, which had its world premiere at the Italian shindig, is finally rolling into UK cinemas.

Two equally cool, contemplative and plot-neutral films – ‘Meek’s Cutoff’ and Sofia Coppola’s ‘Somewhere’ – competed for the Golden Lion. One was universally lauded and touted as the surefire winner. The other was dismissed as shallow, self-regarding and meaningless. And the wrong film won.

The sheer gulf of quality and intention between these two superficially similar films couldn’t be wider. The ‘cinema of nothing’ that both Reichardt and Coppola practice may be currently in vogue, but their approaches to it differ wildly: where Coppola uses the camera to reflect her own celebrity-centric interests, Reichardt’s gaze is firmly fixed on the outside world, and particularly on those poor souls who have lost their place within it.

‘Meek’s Cutoff’ is a western, but it’s like no horse opera you’ve ever seen. Michelle Williams plays Emily, one of a small band of settlers wagon-training west, keeping their eyes peeled for Indian raiders. But with supplies dwindling and tough-talking guide Meek (Bruce Greenwood) looking increasingly out of his depth, the group reluctantly turn to a captured Cayuse warrior (Rod Rondeaux) for guidance.

Employing the same stylistic restraint and sense of inexorably mounting tension she perfected in ‘Old Joy’ and the heartbreaking ‘Wendy and Lucy’, Reichardt creates a mood which is at once entirely believable and entrancingly otherwordly. The period trappings, sparse dialogue and hard-bitten performances feel utterly credible: from the long, wordless opening scene of the settlers lugging their possessions across a shallow river, ‘Meek’s Cutoff’ feels like a sepia-toned snapshot of a bygone era.

And yet, in the emptiness and endlessness of the landscape and in the sheer helplessness of its few inhabitants, there’s a disconnect from modern reality which is powerfully unsettling. Comparisons could be drawn with the opening act of ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’, but Reichardt‘s vision has little of the beauty and all of the threat: where Peter Weir relied on camera trickery and a haunting score to create a sense of nature’s implacability, Reichardt is a staunch realist, shooting straight and letting the setting and the situation speak for themselves.

The result is bold, unrelenting and wilfully oblique, perhaps to a fault: Reichardt’s refusal to provide easy solutions may be thematically appropriate, but it can be alienating. Nonetheless, ‘Meek’s Cutoff’ is one of 2011’s singular cinematic experiences: subtle, simple and devastating. Saddle up.

Author: Tom Huddleston

Time Out London Issue 2121: 14 - 20 April, 2011

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User reviews of this film

bob said...

Posted on May 03 2012 15:44 i have seen this film twice now. first at the LFF where i was amazed at how bad it was, and last week on TV where i was able to fast forward through the substantial boring , dark and mumbling bits. yet, it is a film with some wonderful ideas and cinemaphotography and creates a more realistic vision of what 19th century travellers life was like.
the use of static shots, silence /natural sound and just ordinary movement creates a totally different feel to the usual visuals we see with the Hollywood western. this is nto a 'western' though , it is a film about people ina time and place and thus does nto need to follow the conventions of the genre.
so whilst i applaud this part of the film it is still one of the most boring and unefiying films i have seen in years. it needed mor edrama and character to keep the interest and thos einterminable night shots of mumbling in the dark could easily send one to sleep.
i woudl rather see Ford's wagonmaster made some 60 years ago .

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Jamie said...

Posted on Apr 30 2012 20:50 I saw the movie about a year ago and commented on how bad it was below. Film critics have their views but how TO's man could give this load of incoherent, codswallop four stars defies comprehension. Genuine slow-moving works of art like Malick's oeuvre deserve our admiration. I loved the director's "Wendy and Lucy" so she can make worthwhile films but if I had sent my four-year-old granddaughter out into the Oregon landscape with a mobile phone and a few mumbling actors, she surely have surpassed dreadful travesty.

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mark said...

Posted on Apr 30 2012 19:31 Tony - yep, thay ran out of money by all accounts...over a year later, am still stunned at how tedious and uninvolving the film was...and i am perfectly capable of watching and enjoying films that meander and beat about the bush - i loved Tree Of Life - but Meeks Cutoff feels like a poorly shot student movie that strains to be meaningful, and fails...the entire cineama laughed at the risible cop out ending...

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tony said...

Posted on Apr 28 2012 20:43 My wife and I watched this fiml,or rather I did.My wife gave up because she could not hear what was being said. Not only was the dialogue mumbled,it was mumbled for a lot of the time in the dark. We thought our television had broken down It was painfully slow, as walking the Oregon trail must have been, but even the moments of drama were so low key the tedium was enervating. Did Cathy Reichhardt run out of time or film or time to bring such an irresolute ending. I was principally interested in the character of the Indian - well we will never know - will we ?

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Peter said...

Posted on Apr 27 2012 16:38 If I could claim back the two hours of my life off the producers of this utter rubbish I would. If I could give it no stars I would. It never gets going and it doesn't really end. It's three middle chapters of a bad twelve chapter book. I'm sure there's people that will call it art but if so it should be on a fridge door of an obliging parent.

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KP said...

Posted on Oct 02 2011 10:54 dull dull dull....

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cassius said...

Posted on Aug 19 2011 19:28 It may be slow moving, but it is a film to immerse oneself in. The landscapes are stunning and the authenticity of the situation and the acting really give the viewer the opportunity to feel the story. The introduction of the native American also gives the film a suprising level of tension and interest. For those looking for a taste of the "real" west, this mystical and far out western really delivers. The conclusion may be a bit of a kick in the teeth, but this film is all about the journey.

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viv said...

Posted on Jul 11 2011 10:03 Donot understand what it's talking about and it's just boring and meaningless

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Kate said...

Posted on Jun 17 2011 23:29 Fair point Tony. Equally, you're entitled to your view about the film and that doesn't make it a good one.

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Tony said...

Posted on Jun 16 2011 23:56 I don't usually post to forums etc but just felt I needed to offer a 'Joe public' riposte to some of the negative comments made here. The film has a measured pace and deliberately avoids action bonbons and narrative cliches. Instead it provides both a picture of what the trek westwards was probably like for many, and a meaningful meditation on humility, resistance and humanity. The visual motif of puny human marks on an unforgiving landscape will stay with me for a long time. Some people clearly don't like it, and so it was when I saw it, with groans etc at the end. OK, they are entitled to their view, but that doesn't make it a bad film.

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mo said...

Posted on Jun 01 2011 17:44 Thankfully, the only time I remember seeing the film is when I get an email to say there has been another comment about it on here.....therefore, the best thing about it is it's forgetableness [is that a proper word?]

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At last, someone comes up said...

Posted on Jun 01 2011 15:29 At last, someone comes up with the "right" aneswr!

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Peter Ludbrook said...

Posted on May 31 2011 08:40 For the first ten minutes of this film I was hooked. Thereafter it was downhill all the way. Whilst I loved the look of the film and the attention to detail so much else was missing. The characters didn't develope and whilst the slow pace was bearable at first it became a burden because of the lack of other qualities. Both my girlfriend and I had great difficulty in understanding what was being said whilst every rumble of the wagon wheels was rendered with stunning fidelity. I had a similar problem the remake of 'True Grit'. One wonders whether film-makers experience movies the way we, the paying audience, do? I see, that according to the credits, the film had four people responsible for the sound(design, mic, re-recording mix and a supervisor). You have to wonder how they got it so comprehensively wrong. Yet again an overrated film that could have been so much better. I was going to give two stars but just writing this review has knocked that down to one.

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mo said...

Posted on May 11 2011 12:47 I couldn't make out what they were saying either, but my hearing isn't as good as it used to be so I'm never sure if it's just me. I'm begining to think that some directors are just getting selfish and a lot of critics are scared to say the film's rubbish [again the emperors new clothes syndrome]. Actually going to see Water for Elephants later this week; panned by many critics but could actually 'entertain' me. Think the director of Meeks Cutoff should've watched Winters Bones; now that was a film!

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Jamie said...

Posted on May 11 2011 11:01 I thought "Wendy and Lucy" was really wonderful so I was looking forward to another film by this director. The film was very favourably reviewed by most critics too. However I am beginning to be more suspicous of critics these days after the appalling "Norwegian Wood" and this dismal movie.
I saw the film in the Curzon Millbank and could barely understand a word of the dialogue (maybe my fault or the cinema sound system).
We were all warned that it was a slow film but it was slow to the point of soporific.
There was no discernable character development and the ending was a total cop-out.
Yes, it looked good but movies require more than spectacular scenerey and good cinematography.
Hugely disappointing.

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