'First Cow' is the kind of beautifully made fable I admire

 

First Cow is the kind of movie film critics adore. It's slow as molasses, it's decidedly unglamorous and its meticulous attention to period details (it's set in the nondescript 1820s) show that it was made with a great deal of care and consideration. 

I approached it begrudgingly -- it has made virtually every best of 2020 critics' list but I was worried I'd find it a bore. I am not fully up to speed on writer-director Kelly Reichardt's oeuvre. I saw her Michelle Williams film Wendy and Lucy and remembered finding it effective but also slight.

I am happy to saw that First Cow is a very beautiful piece of filmmaking, if not an endlessly entertaining one. It feels like a fable or a thoughtfully rendered short story and its disarming in its simplicity and its heart.

Part of what draws you into the story is its unconventional heroes. I can't remember the last time I saw a film with leading men this -- gentle. There are no macho Revenant-style heroics in this movie. Just a soft spoken, put-upon cook nicknamed Cookie (played by John Magaro, who resembles a less twitchy Shia LaBeouf) who befriends a Chinese immigrant on the run named King-Lu.

The two men through a set of random circumstances end up going into business with each other selling delicious biscuits that become a big hit in the local town marketplace. The only trouble is they're made with milk they've been stealing by a cow owned by Chief Factor, a wealthy Englishman.

That simple transgression, made out of necessity and ingenuity, winds up spelling the two heroes doom -- which is foreshadowed by a haunting opening that takes place in present. 

The rest of the film is mostly gorgeously photographed atmosphere with an obtrusive score. Dirty, well-worn faces captured against an unforgiving landscape. There is an unspoken, almost sexual tension between Cookie and King-Lu that's interesting. And the movie ends on a jarring, abrupt note that doesn't fully sink in until you reconsider the film's opening.

All in all, this is the kind of film I like to I really admire more than I enjoyed it. It's certainly a change of pace to have leads who are more reserved and recessive, but sometimes that can make a movie feel a little monotone.

There are certain no big performances or flashy moments in First Cow. It's a very quiet, contemplative movie which may or may not be your cup of tea.

Still, with the world outside cinemas full of bombast and quite frankly absurdism right now, there is something refreshing about a story preoccupied with themes like kindness and class.

It'll almost certainly not win any awards love next year if for no other reason because it did nothing commercially and is so aggressively indie arthouse that it will never get enough an audience to be in the conversation and it's not the kind of film I see myself watching over and over again.

But the craft and sensitivity of the filmmaking here is undeniable.