![]() Meek can see her humane intelligence, too, and he can’t resist baiting her in mock-gallant terms, though you sense that she touches a guilty nerve in his soul. Tetherow, who knows how little her opinion counts with the party as a whole, though her husband is smart enough to know she’s worth listening to. But somehow he comes to ebullient life behind the long beard and buckskins-his Stephen Meek resembles the prototype of the American reactionary hustler, selling shortcuts to wealth with a side dish of racial terror. I’ve never been a huge fan of the Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood, who has always seemed to me far more prolific than interesting. To what extent he otherwise resembled the character in this movie-a self-conscious embodiment of the “colorful” frontiersman, spinning yarns and getting hopes up-I don’t know.īut Meek the movie character is vividly realized. There really was an historical Stephen Meek, and he really did lead a group of pioneers on an ill-advised route through the Oregon Territory in 1845. Tetherow (Will Patton) overrules him, on the grounds that the captive could lead them to water. Meek, who reflexively despises Indians, advises killing the man on the spot Mr. As their desperation mounts, they capture a Cayuse Indian (Rod Rondeaux) who had been keeping them under surveillance. ![]() ![]() Low on water, surrounded by vast empty stretches of eastern Oregon desert and terrified of Indian attack, the party begins to grow skeptical of Meek, especially the sharp-eyed Emily Tetherow (Michelle Williams). Set in the 1840s, Kelly Reichardt’s film concerns a small party of families led by a hired guide named Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood), who has promised to take them on a time-saving “cutoff” to the end of the Oregon Trail.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |