Meek's Cutoff

2010 Western

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Folks venturing west in covered wagons start to doubt their guide, a shaggy hippie named Meek. Things get more complicated when they collect a Native American.

I know exactly why I've avoided this movie for so long--it's because the poster tricked me into thinking Renee Zellweger was involved. That's not her at all--it's Michelle Williams.

I finished this movie not thinking I liked it very much at all but convinced myself on a drive to the grocery store that it's better than I thought. It's easy to appreciate how economical Kelly Reichardt's storytelling is, and although initially I wondered if a lot of what was happening or being said in this movie was either redundant or inconsequential, the more I think about it, the more I think every single little detail in this might matter.

That includes the squeaky wagon wheel.

A couple lines of dialogue in here key the viewer in on what this is about, and what it is about seems just as important to America today as it is to these characters in this specific manifest destiny situation. There's a feminist reading of this, female characters often pushed into the background while men wrestle with manly decisions. They sew and wash and do traditional womanly tasks while the men discuss whether to murder people or grow facial hair. The difference between men and women is discussed by the titular guide, but his description of women as agents of chaos and men as agents of destruction didn't make a lot of sense to me.

Another line has to do with Meek himself and whether he is ignorant or evil. You're forced to wonder if certain kinds of ignorance are forms of evil. He does seem to be an expert on hell, however, telling the other characters at different times that "Hell's full of bears" or that "Hell's full of Indians" or that "Hell's full of mountains." Like the other characters on this journey, you get no information at all on anything that took place before the movie started, but you do get the feeling that he's seen some version of watered-down hell and hasn't learned much of anything from the experiences.

Another piece of dialogue I liked during one of the sewing scenes: a reference to all the things that white people have created that are even more impressive than needles.

One thing I didn't like much was the acting and the general look of these characters or their covered wagons. This lacked authenticity, almost like the actors were working at some kind of living history museum instead of making a film. I did kind of like Bruce Greenwood's performance even though what he's doing kind of clashes with the lack of voice the rest of this has. Maybe that's part of the point.

I'm going to think about this one a little bit more, probably because I'm as persistent as a squeaky wagon wheel.