FIRST COW | FILM REVIEW
Dir: Kelly Reichardt (12A, 121 mins)
Leisurely paced and rich in period detail, no one makes like a Western like Kelly Reichardt. After an opening that has Alia Shawkat unearthing a pair of skeletons in the present day, the director immerses us in another time, 1820s Oregon. Adapted from Johnathan Raymond’s novel The Half-Life, the film follows Cookie Fogwitz, played with sensitivity and warmth by John Magaro: a cook in a trapping party, but incompetent at his job and hated for it.
Cookie meets Chinese worker King Lu (Orion Lee), an itinerant drifter dreaming of making it big. They set about trying to shape some sort of entrepreneurial future for themselves, with little success. The film ambles along, observing their plight with simplicity and low-key intimacy, until a plan is hatched. A cow has arrived in the area – the property of Toby Jones’ pompous factor, a man more interested in the fashions of Paris than the people around him.
Cookie and Lu decide to steal the cow’s milk and use it to create their own ‘oily cakes’ and sell them to get rich quick. The scheme goes well, initially: their cakes are a hit – even Jones loves them! – but then they are tasked to make a special cake for a visiting army officer’s tea party. More milk needs to be stolen, but with more people around the cow, the two dairy rustlers are discovered.
The film makes subtle comments on the nature of capitalism, the arrogance of the rich, the struggle of the poor at their ruler’s expense and the disposability of the immigrant population, whilst also being wonderful to look at courtesy of Christopher Blauveldt’s cinematography. The pacing of First Cow won’t appeal to all, but it is full of lived-in details, and a likeable central duo whose plight gains heft under Reichardt’s humanist, gentle eye.
Released in cinemas on Fri 28 May; streaming on Mubi from Fri 9 July
words KEIRON SELF