First Cow

    First Cow
    2019

    Synopsis

    In the 1820s, a taciturn loner and skilled cook travels west to Oregon Territory, where he meets a Chinese immigrant also seeking his fortune. Soon the two team up on a dangerous scheme to steal milk from the wealthy landowner’s prized Jersey cow – the first, and only, in the territory.

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    Cast

    • John MagaroCookie
    • Orion LeeKing-Lu
    • Toby JonesChief Factor
    • Ewen BremnerLloyd
    • Scott ShepherdCaptain
    • Gary FarmerTotillicum
    • Lily GladstoneChief Factor’s Wife
    • Alia ShawkatWoman with Dog
    • Dylan SmithTrapper Jack
    • Ryan FindleyTrapper Dame

    Recommendations

    • 100

      The Guardian

      It is a tremendously engaging story which does something that very few movies do: mention money. Something very palpable is at stake, the jeopardy is real and it’s a question of survival.
    • 100

      The Telegraph

      Starting her film with an aphorism of William Blake’s – “The bird, a nest; the spider, a web; man, friendship” – she not only does justice to the human end of this equation, but looks out for a rare spectrum of the animal kingdom into the bargain.
    • 100

      The New York Times

      First Cow is fundamentally a western: It takes up questions of civilization, solidarity and barbarism on the American frontier. And like many great westerns it critiques some of the genre’s foundational myths with bracing, beautiful rigor, including the myth of heroic individualism.
    • 91

      IndieWire

      Once again, Reichardt has crafted a wondrous little story about two friends roaming the natural splendors of the Pacific Northwest, searching for their place in the world. The appeal of this hypnotic, unpredictable movie comes from how they find that place through mutual failure, and the nature of that outcome in the context of an early, untamed America has rich implications that gradually seep into the frame.
    • 90

      Film Threat

      By examining the subtleties of friendship, the film is transfixing and charming.
    • 80

      The Hollywood Reporter

      While not a lot happens in First Cow by the standards of most two-hour narrative films, and some may wish for a less open-ended conclusion, the drama's rough-edged lyricism kept me rapt the entire time.
    • 70

      Variety

      Reichardt specializes in pared-down narratives, sometimes stripping away so much that boredom sets in. “First Cow” may be lean, but it offers ample room to ruminate in the comparison between its two time periods.
    • 70

      Slate

      Even in a film so sumptuous, with such tender performances, Eve manages to distinguish herself. It’s the kind of turn in a film that could lead the way to a long-lasting career — if not for Eve, then for others like her. “She is here, ready for her next big project,” Henry says. “I don’t think people consider cows as leading characters, but that may change after this movie.”