Movie Review - First Cow

It's the end of the year and film critics are posting their Top Ten lists in newspapers, magazines and blogs. Metacritic is collecting all of them and we're getting a clearer picture of what will be pushed during awards season. It's certainly a time for cinephiles to catch up on films they might have missed. This film, directed and co-written by Kelly Reichardt, is one such title. As of December 23, it's currently ranked at number-one on Metacritic's "Best of 2020: Film Critic Top Ten Lists." This means that it was ranked as number-one on twelve critic's top ten lists, including that of The Atlantic and Time magazine. It made the lists of so many others, so obviously people like it. I suppose I can see why, but I was rather unimpressed with this film.

It opens with someone finding two skeletons buried in a shallow grave. This person seems like she's living in the present-day. We're not sure, but then the film flashes back presumably to tell the story of who those skeletons were when they were alive and what happened to them. It was reminiscent of the TV series Lost, which had an episode in the final season called "Across the Sea" that was the same basic premise. Two skeletons are found side-by-side and in a flashback we see how those skeletons came to be there. It was a bit of a disappointing tale that's told in that episode, which aired now ten years ago. Similarly here, the tale that's told is rather disappointing.

John Magaro (The Big Short and Carol) stars as Otis Figowitz aka "Cookie," a man living in the antebellum days, 200 years in the past. He's in his 30's, but he was an orphan. Both his parents died at a young age. His mother died in child birth and his father died when he was not that much older. Cookie was basically raised and was a servant for a Boston chef who taught him how to cook, especially how to make pastries, thus his name, Cookie. After serving for the chef, Cookie got a job, traveling with some fur trappers headed to Oregon. After losing his job, he wanders into a settlement in the woods somewhere. He dreams of one day opening his own bakery, but he has no clue how to achieve it.

Orion Lee (Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Skyfall) co-stars as King-Lu, a Chinese immigrant who Cookie finds naked and hungry in the woods. He's a man who was on the run from Russians who accused his late friend of being a thief. It's not confirmed if his late friend actually was a thief or not. However, Cookie takes pity on King-Lu and gives him food and shelter in his tent, at least for the night. Some time later, King-Lu runs into Cookie again at a bar in the rural area of Oregon. King-Lu invites Cookie back to his home, which is a shack in the woods.

King-Lu likes Cookie because Cookie was nice to him and helped him. King-Lu invites Cookie basically to live with him. Cookie still has a tent, but not a house like King-Lu has managed to get. It's not clear how King-Lu got this house. It's a shack, so it's possible that he built it himself, but he clearly wants to return the favor to Cookie who gave him food and shelter. It's not clear if King-Lu has any other intentions or ulterior motives. The first time he sleeps in Cookie's tent, it's evocative of the infamous tent scene in Brokeback Mountain (2005). The film never shows their sleeping arrangements after that scene, so it's not sure how cuddled up they are. After spending so much time together, it's also not sure how they're satisfying their sexual urges, which maybe they don't have.

This is plausible, given their situation, which mainly consists of them trying to survive. King-Lu also seems singularly focused on making his fortune. He hints that his reason for being in this area is due to the so-called "gold rush." He's clearly a capitalist and an opportunist who wants to make money and more importantly start his own business, maybe a hotel. That's his goal and getting that goal is all he talks about and he becomes more verbose than Cookie. It's just a matter for him of building a foundation. At first, he thinks he can get into fur trapping, which seems to be the major business in the area currently. However, he gets another idea.

Toby Jones (Infamous and The Hunger Games) plays Chief Factor, a wealthy man and possibly the wealthiest man in the area. He has a large estate and a beautiful home. He also has the luxury of owning a cow. Cookie notices this cow and tells King-Lu that if he had milk from that cow, he could use it to make biscuits and cakes that are really good. King-Lu gets the idea that they can steal from Chief Factor by secretly milking the cow at night without anyone knowing. Cookie can make really delicious pastries and they can sell it in the town square. They do and their pastries are a hit. However, it becomes a question of how long Cookie and King-Lu can continue stealing the milk behind Chief Factor's back.

This is Reichardt's first film since Old Joy (2006) to feature male protagonists and to be exclusively about male protagonists. Most of her films in the interim have been mainly about women. Once Cookie and King-Lu meet, it feels as though Reichardt is going to do a thematic prequel to Old Joy, which is about two men living life in the wilderness and bonding. However, this film is probably more of a spiritual sequel to Meek's Cutoff (2011), which is a Western that's not about the exploits and triumphs of frontiersmen. It's more about the failures and frustrations of those frontiersmen. This film is more in-line with those failures. Many people then as now struggle to succeed but in the end don't.

While I saw some similarities between this and The Sisters Brothers (2018), it's not that similar. While I thought this film might become The Revenant (2015) at one point, it doesn't become that either. It basically becomes about these two guys who steal milk to make biscuits. It's kind of an "Icarus and Daedalus" story, which is fine, but it doesn't really go all that way. The ending is reminiscent of the ending of Midnight Cowboy (1969), but I don't think Reichardt sold me on the friendship between the two men as Midnight Cowboy did. Cookie and King-Lu felt more like business partners than true friends. I never really felt the love between them.

Rated PG-13 for drug use, brief strong language and violence.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 1 min.

Available on VOD and Showtime.