Film Pick of the Week: Land - Review by Yvette Huddleston

Edee bins her mobile phone, has no car – despite advice to keep one – TV, radio or any contact with the outside world. Her first task is to make what is a very rundown, basic structure into a habitable home. She has no previous experience of living in such a potentially hostile place and appears to be ill-equipped to survive. However, she is determined to stay. She makes the cabin into a home of sorts, attempts to plant vegetables in the outside space and teaches herself to fish, with some success.

There are ups and downs – including a scary encounter with a bear and a slip into the river – but she manages well enough, until winter. In freezing temperatures and with little fuel or food, she realises she has placed herself in an extremely vulnerable position. Then she has an accident while trying to collect wood from outside the cabin and loses consciousness. Fortunately, she is found by passing hunter Miguel (Demián Bichir) who calls a nurse. Edee refuses to go to hospital so Miguel offers to stay and look after her.

The script doesn’t shy away from the selfishness of Edee’s actions – her insistence on remaining in what could be a life-threatening situation impacts on others. And her privilege is alluded to, when she tells Miguel, as he heads off once she has recovered, that if she starves to death, she will only have herself to blame. He replies: “Only a person who has never been hungry would think starving is a way to die.” He asks her if he may return in the spring to teach her to hunt, trap and fish, she agrees.

There is very little dialogue and Wright as director is admirably unafraid of the silence, she also avoids any Hollywood cliché pitfalls. The stunning landscape of woodland, mountain and rivers helps maintain audience engagement, as does cinematographer Bobby Bukowski’s luminous capturing of it. However, Edee’s taciturnity and unwillingness to share her story with the sympathetic Miguel, who it transpires has experienced a tragedy of his own, does slightly hamper the narrative in terms of presenting a meaningful investigation of grief and loss.