Robin Wright is two months removed from starring in Wonder Woman 1984, the consummate big budget blockbuster. Her latest film, Land, is a polar opposite portrayal of a tough woman. The intimate picture shows Wright as a woman who shuns society and opts to live in the obscurity of Wyoming.
Wright directs herself in an 89-minute film that basks in the beauty of the Wyoming wilderness. After a brief confrontation with a therapist that only reveals unspecified angst, we find Wright’s Edee Mathis miles from the middle of nowhere. Kim Dickens and Sarah Dawn Pledge make brief appearances in the film to thread the story together, but the crux of the film lies in a healing performance by Demián Bichir.
The film somewhat serves as a rebuttal to a familiar movie. Wright’s ex-husband, Sean Penn, famously explored a similar journey of self-discovery in the 2007 film Into The Wild. Based on a Jon Krakauer non-fiction book of the same name, Penn’s movie focused on Christopher McCandless. Penn’s protagonist, a college graduate in search of itineracy, died in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness.
While Wright’s character resigned herself to endure the same fate as McCandless, Land shows how we do need community… even a small one. A local nurse and Bichir’s character show Edee how to survive in the wilderness. In doing so, they strip away the romanticism of being on your own without a heavy hand.
Edee’s unexpected companion, Miguel, deconstructs the idea of a glorious death through isolation. After she wallows in self-pity and indifference by leaving her survival to the fates, he remarks that starvation is an awful way to die. The moment is the most important lesson in the film. It also might be the counterargument to McCandless’ story.
In subsequent scenes, Land reveals that independence is really a dependent trait. During the bleak times that so many have experienced over the last year, the temptation to break away from society is awfully tempting. The fight for survival being hampered by the privilege of others is crippling, yet Land reveals how much we need each other to pull together to survive physically and emotionally.
The movie depicts the feeling of hitting rock bottom. More than any other plus aspect of the film, Land shows the process of clawing back from the emotional basement. Wright does a beautiful job of filming the rugged country around her remote cabin. She also captures the dangers of starvation, frostbite, and wild animals. Additionally, the well-edited film interconnects multiple character moments without being bogged down in one segment of the story too long.
It was critical for a film with so few characters to reveal its story in a short amount of time. Land executes its pace, cinematography, and script with a brisk tempo that finds the appropriate space to breathe. Wright’s drama stands on its own as a story of self-discovery that provides food for thought after the credits roll.
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