A cautionary fable for those whose dream it is to escape the horrors of reality by ditching car and cell phone and swapping out big-city turmoil for a calming, less complicated existence in a remote Wyoming cabin. That’s precisely the direction Edee’s (Robin Wright, making her feature directorial debut) existential crisis takes after her husband and son fall victim to a random act of violence. Like the locomotive engineer who one day shows up to work expected to know how to pilot a plane, our self-exiled city dweller couldn’t have anticipated what she was in for. (It’s one thing to shit bare in the woods, and something wholly other to spy an angry bear through the outhouse slats.) It’s stunning to look at: there’s not a bad angle to be had from Edee’s mountaintop perch as cinematographer Bobby Bukowski comes through with one “face of God” shot after another. But I take umbrage with occasional drone shots that tend to suck the reality out of the moment by making the uneasy shift from Ansel Adamsish splendor to perspective-flattening panoramic realism. The absence of smoke billowing from her chimney one cold winter day gives hiking humanitarians Miguel (Demián Bichir) and Alawa (Sarah Dawn Pledge) cause to pay a wellness call. Had they not, Edee might have been left for dead. I know what you’re thinking: Miguel’s frequent return trips will result in unnecessary romance. Blessedly, that’s not the case. Nor is this a case of “damsel in distress seeks male salvation.” Were that the point, she’d have never left home in the first place. He teaches her how to hunt and trap, and before long, her survival instincts lose their training wheels. Edee comes to care for Miguel, and what she learns from their friendship is the only force strong enough to get her off the mountain. At least temporarily. Wright knows the wrong choices that would have diluted the drama with sentiment, and she avoids every one of them. (2021) — Scott Marks
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