First Cow

Half of the audience that watches this film will likely hate it. I'm starting with that because this film is incredibly slow in terms of pacing, which will easily turn off the impatient viewers. Personally, if a film like that has an interesting story, a slow pace actually helps to suck me into a story. First Cow, which is one of A24's most recent releases, has just become available on-demand. While I wouldn't rank it among their best when looking at their stellar catalog of films in recent years, it's still a great movie all around.

First Cow follows a highly skilled survivalist/cook in Cookie Figowitz (John Magaro), as he stumbles upon a group of traders. Becoming close friends with King-Lu (Orion Lee), they illegally take an opportunity to earn themselves a profit. Once a cow arrives on one of the farms, they steal milk in order to cook biscuits for the townspeople. All seems well and good, but they can only keep it a secret for so long. This premise held my attention so well because the film continuously gave you reasons to care about the two main characters. It was that, on top of the slow pace that really kept me invested.

Films like Meek's Cutoff and Night Moves are what had me keeping an eye on director Kelly Reichardt because I found those films showed her true potential as a filmmaker. She's wonderful at bringing out the best in all of her performers. What kept me from loving those two films overall though, was the fact that I found them to be a little too drab in terms of sound design and music. That's clearly her signature because First Cow once again feels a little too much like that. I loved watching this film and everything that happens felt earned and satisfying, but the overall movie can feel a little lifeless at times. That's really my only issue with most of her film that I've seen. She's otherwise an award-worthy filmmaker in my eyes.

Yes, John Magaro and Orion Lee are both terrific and hold this film together from start to finish, but the real star of the show here is cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt. Having worked on her two aforementioned films as well as a few others, his work on Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot and Mid90s is when his name truly jumped out at me. Blauvelt is someone that I will begin researching and anxiously awaiting his next project, simply due to the fact that his work on First Cow was his best yet. The camerawork felt like a character in its own right. From certain ways, characters are framed to extreme wide shots that clearly have deeper meanings, the way this film looks pulled me in more than anything else.

In the end, there are things about the tone that bothered me throughout the entire movie, but the story, characters, and especially the way the film is shot held my attention throughout. It's hard to recommend this movie to those who are casual viewers and were looking to be entertained because I can almost guarantee that you won't be unless you're a film buff and know what to expect. If it wasn't for the dour feel of the whole thing just not clicking with me, I might be saying that I loved this movie. Overall, it's a very, very well-made film that deserves attention, but from the proper audience.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Director Kelly Reichardt doesn't do plot driven movies. Still, FIRST COW is a feature where one has to be observant from the very first shot to the final one.

Reichardt's method of expression is to create a setting and fully immerse the viewer in it. Even though it's based on a novel by Jonathan Raymond (who also co-wrote the screenplay with the Director), FIRST COW isn't concerned with telling a tight knit tale, indeed the characters themselves seem to be exploring and creating their own "plot". They're own history. It's 1820s Oregon and two drifters, Cookie (John Magaro) and King-Lu (Orion Lee) end up in a small town with little at their disposal but some vague hope to keep on moving until they find themselves. The title animal comes to town and the pair find some short-term opportunity to use it's precious milk. Toby Jones is the owner of the Cow - and the richest man in the hamlet.

As is Reichardt's manner, the pacing is deliberate, her camera mostly steady (the movie is framed in the old fashioned 1:37 ratio) and the editing stately. She seems averse to making even the most intense situation palpable to the audience (her previous film, CERTAIN WOMEN, probably had cinema's least dramatic hostage sequences). Reichardt depicts the situation, and the viewer must create their own drama. It doesn't always work (WENDY AND LUCY), but, here as in OLD JOY, there is a vividness in the depiction that makes it worthwhile, if still not entirely satisfying.

Reichardt is an interesting talent and FIRST COW is an immersive dive into the old frontier (there is talk of going south towards the promised land of California and its emerging cities) even if it never quite strikes deep enough.

The film's visual style is impressive but it's story and pacing is what really drags this film down for me. The cinematography is the one aspect I found to be excellent. The framing is on point and impressive and it adds a lot to the film's style. The production design and costumes are also really good here too. These characters look and feel as if they in the 1820s. The performances are also great too. Each character feels believable and works to help tell the story of the film. Although I like all that, the pacing is not very good. It feels incredibly long and tedious without any real majorly satisfying payoff. It's a 2 hour movie that feels like it goes on for 2 and a half hours. If they had cut down some of the scenes, this issue wouldn't be as major as it is. There were some elements of the story I enjoyed and some I found to be pointless. If you like A24 then check it out but don't have your hopes incredibly high for it.

For those viewers who believe the pace of the film is "slow", yes, there are no car chases. Instead, this film has a depth of character and original development that creates a mood so beautifully of the time and place. It is refreshing to have a plot that keeps the viewer's interest throughout. When the majority of movie offerings out there are pure trash, this film is a real treat.

"It's the getting started that's the puzzle. No way for a poor man to start. ... You need capital, or you need some kind of miracle." "You need leverage." "Or a crime."

Another excellent Western from Kelly Reichardt, one with high production quality and which quietly subverts the genre's traditional themes. That starts with the two protagonists, King-Lu and Cookie (Orion Lee and John Magaro) who are rational, somewhat timid guys who hit on a plan to make a fortune via baked goods (yes, baked goods). Cookie is quite the domestic for the hero of a Western, and can crank out a clafoutis if necessary. The buddy he meets, King-Lu, is from China but is the antithesis of stereotypical representations, having traveled the world and multi-lingual, including English and the local Native American dialect. How fantastic is it that these guys aren't macho gunslingers, that they cook, sew, sweep the house, and forage while trying to figure out how to take advantage of this "land of riches." Meanwhile, the Native Americans themselves aren't blood-thirsty savages, they're people and they co-exist with the colonizers, which is reasonably accurate for the 1820's, a few decades before mass colonization would lead to genocide.

Despite the relative harmony, there is a quiet, rather ominous danger everywhere, from a bully in the fur trapping group promising to wait outside the fort after Cookie is paid to rob him, to King Lu describing how his friend was gutted from neck to loin because he was suspected of being a thief, to the more powerful men who debate how many lashes are appropriate in corporal punishment which is clearly at their discretion. There is no real law and order here, just force, and might makes right. At the same time, Reichardt is incredibly restrained in not showing a lot of violence, or reveling in it as a lesser director might have done.

Meanwhile, the message comes through that the West wasn't won with frontier spirit or some other aspect of mythical American exceptionalism, it was won with crime. Sure, the two mild-mannered fellas with big dreams steal milk from a rich guy's cow to make some delicious oily cakes, setting up a pop-up food stall (ok food blanket) that's quite popular with the locals, enriching themselves in the process. But the rich guy is stealing resources from the Native Americans and idiotically believes that the beaver can be trapped without limit. When he's told by King-Lu how vast the original beaver population was in the state, he can't extrapolate what greed will do to the population eventually, or doesn't want to (and indeed, the beaver was almost driven to extinction in Oregon). The little thieves end up in shallow graves, the big thief ends up likely lauded in the state's history, with a town probably named after him.

The first cow (fantastically played by Evie the cow btw) is thus a symbol of the natural order shifting, and in a profound way. Early on in a small saloon, one man remarks "This ain't a place for cows. God would've put cows here if it was." Another replies "No place for white men either then." It's notable that the cow is there so a rich man can have cream in his tea, and so he can display his status and sophistication to visitors who might look down on his rustic surroundings. It's a luxury, and reserved for him alone. It's the tip of an enormous iceberg, of many more white men with their precious possessions, of a lifestyle that will ravage the environment for the sake of personal wealth. In the opening shot in the present day, an enormous (and very ugly) cargo barge is seen going down the river. It's a shot I almost forgot by the time the film ended, but it seems to show in a subtle way the result of 200 years of such a lifestyle.

That's an aspect of Reichardt's direction I admire most, just how much she holds back and lets the viewer think about. There is a powerful message here, but it's delivered with great subtlety. Most of the scenes are played without a soundtrack in the background, and she doesn't feel a need to include shots to fill everything in for the viewer. There were places where I felt the film could have moved along a little more quickly and it won't be for everyone, but the more I thought about it afterwards, the more I appreciated what she had done.