Land: Robin Wright Navigates Bereavement and Bears in Modest Directorial Debut

By Kim Hughes

Rating: B

Land, the directorial debut from Robin Wright, arrives with considerable anticipation. She is a gifted actor, clearly intelligent, has worked under formidable directors and doubtless has something to say. Really, one wonders what took so long.

But what lands with Land is underwhelming; not quite a disappointment but considerably less than what was hoped for given Wright’s professional toolkit and the endless possibilities a subject as complex as profound grief offers.

I hate to say it, but the phrase that kept spinning through my mind throughout the film’s running time was, “Isn’t this kind of a stationary and duller version of Wild,” director Jean-Marc Vallée’s 2014 reading of Cheryl Strayed’s memoir adapted to the screen by Nick Hornby.

Here, writers Jesse Chatham and Erin Dignam marshal a fictional protagonist albeit one with a link to contemporary violence in the U.S. But a narrative sluggishness persists.

Wright, who also stars, is Edee, a grief-stricken woman too damaged to benefit from traditional therapeutic means. The source of her pain is not revealed until the film’s end, but flashbacks offer glimpses and suggestions. Edee plants herself in a remote cabin in the forests of Wyoming (actually Alberta) without a mobile phone, a car or, it quickly becomes evident, basic survival skills to draw upon.

It’s unclear whether Edee has a death wish or is simply cordoning herself off with her anguish, but her bottomless blackness is juxtaposed against the spectacular natural beauty surrounding her. Things quickly go sideways and not just because there are hungry bears in the Rockies. Winter descends and Edee, without adequate food, firewood or the means to either summon help or evacuate, closes in on death.

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

Two locals coincidentally and very fortunately find and revive Edee, who slowly develops a kinship with one of them, outdoorsman Miguel (Demián Bichir). He also lives an ascetic existence in the mountains but knows how to hunt, fish and chop wood, handy skills for successfully navigating complete seclusion from humankind while exorcising soul-shattering sorrow.

Miguel becomes Edee’s survival teacher. And as Edee learns how to survive literally in the wild, she also — yes, yes, I’m going there because I have to — learns to survive emotionally as well.

Maddeningly, and despite a big reveal at film’s end that recalibrates Edee’s perspective, Miguel’s back story goes unexplored. He’s obviously Latin; how’d he end up in Wyoming all by himself? Who taught him to skin a deer like that?

Edee’s unwillingness to explore these questions for fear of courting reciprocity is understandable I guess, but it mutes the storyline. A scene of a drunken share between these two, for instance, would have offered a propulsive emotional release for this oddly static and stilted story.

That said, Land’s glorious backdrop — it was shot on location in Calgary, Didsbury, and Kananaskis — is a joy to behold. Wright’s best work is simply yet to come.

Land. Directed by Robin Wright. Written by Jesse Chatham and Erin Dignam. Starring Robin Wright, Demián Bichir, Sarah Dawn Pledge, and Kim Dickens. Available at home on demand for a 48-hour rental period beginning March 5.