Review of Meek's Cutoff (2011) by Joshua D — 11 Mar 2012

I was not as impressed as everyone else was with this. I love Kelly Reichardt's other films, but I just wasn't feeling this one. It is suppose to come off as natural, but it couldn't feel more stagey to me.

It's supposed to come off as poised and sparse, but instead it felt oblique and average. And it doesn't help knowing the history of the actual journey, as the truth would make a much more expensive and grander film than this.

Still, it's not the choice to re-write an epic journey into a small existential comment about emptiness, loss and gender separation in a hard land that bothers me so much. It's the fact that it just feels formally forced, anemic to a fault and ultimately untrue.