There's no saying

Meek's Cutoff

Crit

Thank heaven for Kelly Reichardt, who has the confidence to make movies where nothing much happens, except that everything happens. Here the image is often obscured by darkness and the dialogue by distance both geographical and linguistic. And lack of clarity is precisely the point: whom you can trust, what evidence of your own senses you can trust, who knows? One thing you can be sure of: you've got to have water.

A gorgeous, hard-edged film, with beautiful performances by the entire cast of nine (!), especially Michelle Williams, Will Patton, and, as "the Indian," longtime stuntman Rod Rondeaux.