Meek's Cutoff (film)

Meek's Cutoff is a 2010 American western film directed by Kelly Reichardt. The film was shown in competition at the 67th Venice International Film Festival.[2] The story is loosely based on a historical incident on the Oregon Trail in 1845, in which frontier guide Stephen Meek led a wagon train on an ill-fated journey through the Oregon desert along the route later known as the Meek Cutoff in the western United States.

Meek's Cutoff
Theatrical release poster
Directed byKelly Reichardt
Produced byElizabeth Cuthrell
Neil Kopp
Anish Savjani
David Urrutia
Written byJonathan Raymond
StarringMichelle Williams
Paul Dano
Bruce Greenwood
Shirley Henderson
Neal Huff
Zoe Kazan
Tommy Nelson
Will Patton
Rod Rondeaux
Music byJeff Grace
CinematographyChris Blauvelt
Edited byKelly Reichardt
Production
company
Evenstar Films
Film Science
Harmony Productions
Primitive Nerd
Distributed byOscilloscope Laboratories
Release date
  • September 4, 2010 (2010-09-04) (Venice)
  • April 8, 2011 (2011-04-08) (United States)
Running time
104 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2 million
Box office$1.2 million[1]

Plot

A small group of settlers travelling across the Oregon High Desert in 1845 suspect that their guide, Stephen Meek, may not know the area well enough to plot a safe and certain route. A journey that was supposed to take two weeks, via what became known as the Meek Cutoff, stretches into five. With no clear sense of where they are going, tensions rise as water and food run low. The wives look on, unable to participate in the decision making, as their husbands discuss how long they should continue to follow Meek.

The dynamics of power shift when they capture a lone native and hold him in the hope he will lead them to a source of water, despite Meek's wish to kill him at once. Meek argues that the native cannot be trusted, but the group by now have no greater confidence in Meek. Later, when Meek prepares to shoot the native, Mrs. Tetherow intervenes. In the end, after the group encounter the positive sign of a tree, Meek submits to majority opinion and the group continue to follow the native.

Cast

Critical reception

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 86% based on reviews from 127 critics and reports a rating average of 7.54 out of 10, a generally positive reception. It reported the consensus, "Moving at a contemplative speed unseen in most westerns, Meek's Cutoff is an effective, intense journey of terror and survival in the untamed frontier."[3] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 85 based on 36 reviews.[4]

See also
  • Survival film, about the film genre, with a list of related films

References
  1. "Meek's Cutoff (2011) - Box Office Mojo". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2016-11-20.
  2. "Venezia 67". labiennale.org. 2010-07-29. Retrieved 2010-07-29.
  3. "Meek's Cutoff". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 5, 2011.
  4. "Meek's Cutoff". Metacritic. Retrieved July 5, 2011.
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