- Robin Wright, Kim Dickens
- June 4th 2021
- Robin Wright
Robin Wright stars as a woman who isolates herself in the Wyoming wilderness following a tragedy in this drama.
After gaining experience behind the camera with Netflix series House of Cards, Robin Wright has finally transitioned to directing features.
Land, her directorial debut, follows a bereaved woman named Edee (Wright) who buys a remote mountainside cabin in the middle of the Wyoming wilderness after an unknown tragedy.
She ditches her phone and car, completely cutting herself off from civilisation and isolating herself from the world.
However, she has no experience of wilderness life so she struggles to survive, particularly in winter.
That is until local hunter Miguel (Demian Bichir) comes to her rescue, offers her friendship, and helps her cope with her grief.
Despite the film only being 89 minutes, it still feels quite slow, but that’s because we spend a lot of the movie just watching Edee trying to survive out in the woods on her own and so there’s no dialogue to sink our teeth into.
This portion of the film isn’t boring, but Miguel’s arrival signalled a welcome change of pace and offered up some much-needed conversation, wilderness survival tutorials, and ’80s singalongs.
Although the film is set in Wyoming, it was actually filmed in Alberta, Canada, and the location is breathtakingly beautiful.
The view from the cabin is gorgeous and the cinematography made it look stunning and quite appealing in the summertime.
Wright delivers an emotionally raw, poignant performance and carries the vast majority of the movie on her capable shoulders.
Edee goes on a moving journey throughout the film and it was interesting watching her go from being full of anger and sorrow and not seeing the point of living to finally addressing her grief and making life liveable again.
Edee is cold and unfriendly and Bichir’s Miguel offered up a good contrast – he is kind, warm, and loves to sing – and it was nice watching their friendship develop and him wearing her hard exterior down.
The audience gets very little information about Edee in the beginning but can piece together an idea of her story through a couple of flashbacks and some hints throughout.
It was smart leaving the revelation about her backstory until the very end of the feature because it had more of an emotional impact and it made the conclusion far more poignant.
This won’t be everybody as not a lot happens in this film, but it tells a beautiful and moving character-driven story that is worth checking out.
In cinemas from Friday 4th June.
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