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“Land,” Robin Wright’s feature directorial debut, which premiered this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival, is a confident drama about multiple forms of isolation that explores the human condition. Edee (Wright) is emotionally isolated as a result of a terrible tragedy and the lingering grief that has driven her to the brink of suicide. Perhaps in an attempt to reflect how alone she feels on the inside, She isolates herself physically as well, retreating to a remote cabin and attempting to live off the land for a period of time. Wright’s film is a lyrical character study about two people who are deeply troubled and who find purpose in their relationship with one another. Despite the fact that the vast landscape around them appears to remind them of their insignificance in the face of the magnificence of Mother Nature, “Land” suggests that isolation is not the solution and that connection is what matters. It’s a smart, moving piece of work that’s hampered a little by a rushed final act that feels a little manipulative, but that’s otherwise confidently performed throughout.
The first half-hour of the film contains almost no dialogue, but Wright manages to convey a great deal about the characters’ motivations. Edee is driving to a remote cabin in the mountains during the film’s lengthy opening credits. As soon as she tells the man who guided her to the location that she will come and get the rental car as soon as he can, he suggests that it would be safer if she had a vehicle up here. Edee is unconcerned about his own safety. Following an undisclosed tragedy, Edee’s lack of preparation for what is about to confront her almost leads to flashbacks that hint at her suicidal nature, which almost leads to the flashbacks. According to Edee, she is fine with the Earth reclaiming her body. He or she doesn’t know how to hunt or trap; she doesn’t have enough food and supplies; and winter is on the horizon. If she dies out here, that’s fine with me. When you’re hundreds of miles away from the ocean, it’s almost as if you’re watching someone slowly drown.
Other than brief flashbacks to a sister named Emma (Kim Dickens) pleading with Edee not to commit suicide and glimpses of a man and a boy, who it becomes clear are Edee’s long-lost family, writers Jesse Chatham and Erin Dignam withhold the specifics of what has driven Edee to a place that almost feels built by Mother Nature to kill her. “Land” is, at its heart, a story of unimaginable grief, the kind of pain that changes the landscape forever. Imagine something so terrible happening to you that the world around you appears to be completely different—why not change your setting to something as extreme as moving from the city of Chicago to the Rocky Mountains to get a better perspective? Wright does an excellent job as a performer in the film’s first act, imbuing Edee with what almost feels like constant discomfort. Because it is such a stark and gloomy story, we begin to share Edee’s unrelenting sadness along with her.
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Finally, a hunter named Miguel (Demián Bichir) and a nurse named Alawa are introduced in “Land,” and the film shifts gears from there (Sarah Dawn Pledge). But it’s not just that they save Edee’s life; Miguel also ends up becoming an unexpected ally and even a teacher for her. He promises Edee that he will not tell her anything about the outside world in order to maintain her self-isolation, and he doesn’t say much else. He’s going to give her the tools she needs to survive, and then he’s going to disappear. And he’ll be bringing some of his own trauma and grief with him on the hunting trip.
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Wright and cinematographer Bobby Bukowski (“99 Homes”) strike a nice balance between lyrical shots of the gorgeous backdrop and close-ups that reveal the trauma that their characters have experienced. It’s a visually stunning film that never loses sight of its inherent danger. Late in the film, there’s a scene in which Edee is standing on the precipice of a cliff, and I was convinced she was going to plunge off. This world’s “land” maintains a delicate balance between its natural beauty and the fact that it contains numerous dangers that can kill you, ranging from hungry bears looking for food to brutal winter snowstorms and cliffs, among other things. The editing of Anne McCabe and Mikkel E.G. Nielsen deserves to be commended as well for achieving this delicate balance.
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“Land,” on the other hand, is most effective as a performance piece for two excellent actors. Wright captures every aspect of this character perfectly, particularly the way she internalizes her grief and uses that empty pain to propel herself forward to survive the ordeal. Bichir responds with a performance that is very different from hers, but no less powerful. Both characters have little to say, and the dialogue is frequently the weakest aspect of the film because it is sometimes a little too unrealistic, but that allows Wright and Bichir to do a great deal of physical acting in their scenes together. Most importantly, they successfully convey how these two people eventually become dependent on one another without resorting to melodrama. Because they are two fully believable, three-dimensional characters who find themselves unexpectedly sharing the same space, they have chemistry.
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A few of “Land’s” final scenes come across as forced, and I found the film to be far more effective when it was silent rather than when it was filled with dialogue. A simple shot of a man sitting on a porch with his eyes closed and the sun on his face can be more impactful than an overwritten monologue, according to some critics.
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As Miguel sings the song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears several times throughout the film, it becomes a running gag, and it’s tempting to dissect the lyrics and consider how they relate to the story of the film. Indeed, it contains the lines “Turn your back on mother nature” and “It’s my own design/my It’s own remorse,” both of which could be interpreted as referring specifically to the character Edee’s story. “Nothing ever lasts forever,” says a line in the chorus, which is particularly important to remember when dealing with depression and grief, emotions that can feel like they’ll last forever at times.
This review was submitted in conjunction with the Sundance Film Festival’s world premiere on January 31st, 2021. It is scheduled to premiere in theaters on February 12th, 2021.
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