Morrisa Maltz's road drama takes time for the beauty of the people we find along the way in yet another showcase for a remarkable Lily Gladstone.
This review was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn't exist.
At the core of this is Gladstone’s Tana. She has just lost her grandmother who she had been caring for up until the very end. Devastated by her death, she hits the road to travel from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota after getting an invitation to her cousin’s wedding. The moment of celebration coming so close after a loss while Tana is still in mourning is further complicated by the fact that she hasn’t been back home in some time.
As she does so, we hear the overlapping chatter of the radio that serves as a recurring reminder of the grim reality of living in America today. It isn’t heavy-handed even as it makes explicit that there is much to be wary of in the present just as it can often feel like little can be done to change it. This is then made concrete in the interactions Lana has with people who may wish her harm.
The rich textures of the land and the people become intertwined, telling a story that looks closely at what other filmmakers might overlook. It does so with a light touch, never falling into the darkness too much, while also remembering that it is always there. As Lana stumbles upon a photo that leads to her going in search of where it was taken, the film settles into a rhythm that proves to be quite arresting.
'The Unknown Country' Builds to a Dazzling Destination Building towards an ending that is both rather unexpected yet utterly fitting, the film looks out to the vast horizon just as it does the internal history that its roaming character carries with her. It is the type of conclusion that could fall into being trite in a less subtle work that telegraphed its arrival, but this one thrives because of the gentle way it went about teasing out significant revelations.
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