Sundance 2011—The Return (4)

Sundance Film Festival 2011*

Park City, Utah

Meek’s Cutoff (2010)

Rated PG

Meek’s Cutoff/John’s Shortcut: A quiet little film that won’t be seen by 98 percent of America is about three families on the 19th Century Oregon Trail that get lost while supposedly taking a shortcut through the bleak landscape.

Kelly Reichardt’s film is deliberately paced, synched with the rhythms of daily life on the Trail, and rich in period detail. Bruce Greenwood—unrecognizable as the dusty, hairy, irascible Stephen Meek—leads the families on a doom journey he’s supposedly taken before.

A poster for Meek’s Cutoff at Prospect Theater in Park City (Credit: Marvin Brown)

Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine, My Week with Marilyn) stands tall as the young matriarch of one of the families. She watches in the background and keeps her place as the men—her husband among them—hash out their dilemma. As things go from bad to worse, she subtly inserts herself into the negotiations (Should they abandon the obviously lost Meek and strike out on their own? What to do about the Indian they’ve captured along the way?), eventually going head-to-head with Meek himself—something the men seem afraid to do.

The punishing, sepia-toned/sun-scorched landscape—rolling endlessly, dry, sharp weeds and dull rock—eventually overtakes the senses and draws out dread.

After a screening of My Idiot Brother (renamed Our Idiot Brother once it made its way to theaters) was both delayed and ran long, my brother John Brown and I were left with 20 minutes to find the Prospect Theater for a screening of Meek’s. We had no time to wait for a bus and decided to hoof it over to the Prospect, even though we weren’t sure where we were going. After getting directions twice, we sprinted across snow, down alleyways and made the closed-door screening by the skin of our teeth. Things ended better for us than those wagon-trail families, I’ll tell you that.

*Note: Since marvincbrown.com had not been created at the time of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, I decided to go back and repost these reviews and festival  items, which were catalogued elsewhere—mainly because I needed to get these reviews into my archives, but also because it was an enjoyable experience I’d like to share.

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