Bleecker Street
There’s a sort of indie genre I call the ‘slow melancholic’ genre, which often has a lot of long, tense silences, or sometimes a lot of long, thoughtful silences. There’s trauma to be overcome or entirely lost to, and often highly specific geographic locales to inspire a time and place. Much of the time though, there is an attempt to be almost timeless, to stand apart from the specificities of a generation.
Montana Story is one such example of the genre, coming from writer-director pair David Siegel and Scott McGehee. We start by following young twentysomething Cal (Owen Teague), who has been back to his own family ranch in Montana because of the failing health of his father, his one surviving parent. It’s a slow start to the story as we learn about some of the other players around, like the empathetic, observant hospice nurse (Gilbert Owuor), the no-nonsense housekeeper (Kimberly Guerrero), and childhood pal Joey (Asivak Koostachin).
The ranch is in the middle of nowhere in Montana, under the so-called ‘Big Sky’ with endless vistas and a sense that you are utterly alone. But that sense can also lend a feeling of importance and depth, to feel connected to the vastness of existence, if you let it. The movie certainly takes advantage of this dichotomy as it begins to consider the drama of the characters.
Cal’s sister Erin (Haley Lu Richardson) also shows up, having been estranged from the family for many years. The specifics of this estrangement are revealed soon enough, in ways personal and universal, horrible and believable, as the two are still highly damaged by a particularly traumatic upbringing — thus the secondary conflict is there too, that this old man dying before them, as weak as they’ve ever seen him, a victimizer but still family.
Erin and Cal find themselves in a tense situation by necessity, as they need to figure out what to do with a lot of things left behind, particularly one favorite old horse of Erin’s. And moving a horse anywhere is naturally going to be an undertaking — but will the two siblings work through their pain to reach catharsis and healing or stay stuck in the past?
The movie doesn’t really try to shake this old story up much, instead relying on ambiance and performance to connect you to the travails and troubles of these two. Thankfully the movie is indeed beautifully shot, handling both close-ups and far off shots to contextualize this world that is far away from anything but too close for comfort.
Haley Lu Richardson and Owen Teague both give heartaching, painful performances here, realistically traumatized but also pulling off the estranged sibling vibe. At times they really do feel like they could be related, although not always — still, this is the sort of slow, mostly sad movie that hopes to find hope at the end.
Which means that this won’t be most people’s cup of tea, if the idea of an old school family drama of two people that takes its time getting there appeals to you, this is a fine example of the genre. But that isn’t the sort of thing that’s for everyone, so just keep that perspective in mind.
Montana Story has a run time of 1 hour 54 minutes, and is rated R R for language.
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