from vk & associates

Synopsis:

The year is 1845, the earliest days of the Oregon Trail, and a wagon team of three families has hired the mountain man Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood – Mao’s Last Dancer; Barney’s Version; Dinner for Schmucks) to guide them over the Cascade Mountains. Claiming to know a short cut, Meek leads the group on an unmarked path across the high plain desert, only to become lost in the dry rock and sage. Over the coming days, the emigrants must face the scourges of hunger, thirst and their own lack if faith in each other’s instincts for survival. When a Native American wanderer (Rod Rondeaux – 3:10 To Yuma; Wild, Wild West; Crazy Horse) crosses their path, the emigrants are torn between their trust in a guide who has proven himself unreliable and a man who has always been seen as the natural enemy).

The film also stars Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine; Brokeback Mountain; Wendy and Lucy), Will Patton (Wendy and Lucy; Brooklyn’s Finest; A Mighty Heart), Zoe Kazan (Revolutionary Road; Fracture; The Savages), Paul Dano (Cowboys and Aliens; The Extra Man; Knight and Day; Where the Wild Things Are; There Will be Blood), Shirley Henderson (Rob Roy; Trainspotting; Wonderland; The Claim; 24 Hour Party People), Neal Huff (Jack and Diane; Monogamy; Motherhood; Michael Clayton; The Good Shepherd), and Tommy Nelson (The Good Shepherd; The She Found Me; The Ten).

About the Directors Work:

American landscapes and narratives of the road are themes that run throughout Kelly Reichardt’s work including past films Wendy and Lucy (2008); Old Joy (2006) and Ode (1999). Her first feature, River of Grass (1994), was shot in her home town of Dade Country, Florida.

In preparation for Meek’s Cutoff, she read diaries of women who made the migration west.

“The women’s stories offer such a specific take on the history – one totally different from the one portrayed in the Hollywood Western … the diaries paint a picture of an endless landscape and a trance-like feeling of one day rolling into the next.”

Reichardt and writer Jon Raymond, who have also worked together on Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy, have referred to the three films as an “Oregon Trilogy” with all three being connected in underlying themes, political under currents and general feel.