Meek's Cutoff
2010
**
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Cast: Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Bruce Greenwood, Shirley Henderson, Neal Huff, Zoe Kazan, Tommy Nelson, Will Patton, Rod Rondeaux
In 1845, a wagon train of three families are heading towards the green valleys of Oregon. Without water in sight for weeks, the settlers become divided on who to trust to guide them out of the desert, their boastful guide or the native they captured. Kelly Reichardt's snail-paced feminist Western has no beginning and no end. We don't know where these people are coming from or where they end up. We see the middle part where they slowly trudge through the desert to the tune of the squeaky wagon wheel. It doesn't sound terribly exciting, and it certainly isn't at any point. The unforgiving Oregon landscape is the film's biggest draw, but Reichardt has bafflingly decided to shoot it in a 4:3 aspect ratio.
