Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
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.
First Cow is a quietly remarkable film. Kelly Reichardt's direction and Christopher Blauvelt's cinematography are exceptional — the rare 1.33:1 Academy ratio framing gives the film an intimate, painterly quality that feels genuinely distinctive. The two lead performances (John Magaro and Orion Lee) are understated and deeply convincing, building a tender male friendship with remarkable naturalism. Novelty is high: this is a one-of-a-kind revisionist Western that strips the genre of its mythologies and replaces gunfights with biscuit-frying, making a profound statement about early capitalism and friendship with near-radical quietude. The plot, while deliberately unhurried and minimal, serves the film's meditative aims, though its slightness keeps it from a top score. The ending — bookended by the modern-day framing — is elegiac and resonant but also deliberately anticlimactic, which is thematically consistent but may feel unresolved to some viewers.