Beautiful and sad - maybe a little to sad This is an extraordinary film, regarding the whole approach by the dircetor, the intense depiction of both the main-actress as well as the incredible performances by all thos lay-characters and the beautiful photography. But after all, I experienced it as (too) sad.
I found it baffling that this team created a working atmosphere, which obviously enabled all those lay actors/characters to just deliver this authencity and intensity, that carries the movie.
Obviously McDormand has a huge part in this, given that she faces all these characters in very intimate scenes. And she herself delivers fantastically: she is so sad yet so strong. One never can fully read her, whis seems just adequate, since I doubt we all can do this even ourselves.
The amazing photography of both the landscape and the whole environment (of course another main-act in this picture) but also of the characters and their story-telling faces was just as perfect as the acting and directing.
However, the contributors view their movie althoug as a story of hope, even of empowerment. For me, it was hard to read it in such a way and I think this has a lot to do with the score. Simply put: although I could here that the characters had hope, that there is this amazing level of solidarity, the underlying music (which is very present, since the movie is rather slow) was just so sad that it made it hard to feel the positivity in this whole community. I think this is a burden, the movie should not have had in this intensity.