As if making a really good movie isn’t hard enough, some films, including this one, place obstacles in their own way.  In this case, it’s Edee, the main character, whose decisions are so poorly conceived and executed that she nearly dies in the wilderness of Wyoming.  I thought that she was mentally disturbed for a long while; eventually everything about Edee’s state of mind is made clear by a child’s drawing and learning the fate of her family.  Then it makes sense — but by then the film has about one minute left to go, too little to fully appreciate that knowledge.

Robin Wright’s film (her directorial debut) finds Edee (Robin Wright, doing double duty) leaving Chicago (?) and her sister Emma (Kim Dickens) behind for the wilds of Wyoming.  She arranges to stay in a barebones cabin and brings supplies, but they don’t last forever, there’s a bear, and she cannot bring herself to hunt.  A stranger, Miguel (Demián Bichir), stops by and saves her life; he nurses her back to health and periodically checks on Edee and teaches her how to survive.  That’s most of the movie, backed by the grandeur of the mountains (actually Alberta, Canada, doubling for Wyoming.

I don’t care for movies of this ilk, like Into the Wild, or Wild, or this one, because the protagonists are wholly unprepared for living off the grid, and we have to watch them nearly die before they learn to depend upon nature for sustenance, not just look at the wilderness with awe.  (Not that I would survive; I wouldn’t last a month).  The back-to-nature bit is fun for fantasizing, but the reality is a whole lot grimmer.  This movie gains credit for trying to illustrate how rough it can be, but it’s darn hard to appreciate because the main character seems so deliberately, foolishly, stupidly out of place.

The film is well made technically, and Demián Bichir is wonderful as the patient, worldly but earthy Miguel, whose experiences eerily echo those of Edee.  That’s why they get along so well, I think.  But Edee’s motivation is a real problem, especially when she tells Miguel that she is there “to notice things” about the world around her.  That’s well and good, but also about as profound as most fortune cookies.  A script that put Edee’s issues front and center would have been better, I think, but that isn’t the path chosen.  Too bad.  ☆ ☆ 1/2.  17 February 2021.