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Montana Story (2021)

Montana Story" operates best as a ticking time bomb juxtaposed tonally from Kevin Morby's plaintive melodic score

[10/10 · 12 May 2022]

Cal (Owen Teague) arrives on a large Montana spread, his long face and hesitant gait foretelling what his father's large wooden, picturesque home holds. When he enters, an overbearing beeping sound arises, and a kind-spoken Kenyan nurse named Ace (Gilbert Owuor) greets him. Cal's father had a stroke. He's now lying in the living room in a permanent coma attached to life support. The ranch isn't in much better shape: A lapsed mortgage, no cattle, a 25-year-old stallion on its last legs, and a few chickens account for what remains. Cal tries to shoulder the burden alone until his estranged sister Erin (a profound Haley Lu Richardson) makes an unannounced appearance. The pair haven't spoken for seven years. Back then, Erin outed their father in the school paper as a lawyer covering up a toxic mess at a local mine. Their father attacked her, beating her nearly to death, only for a 15-year-old Cal to stand frozen, watching. Now she lives in upstate New York and Cal lives in Cheyenne. But their shared regret stands only inches apart. Beyond their abusive father, the siblings share another foible: Their horse Mr. T, the black stallion with arthritis. Cal wants to put him down rather than keeping him locked away and paying for the feed. Erin would rather take the horse with her back to upstate New York. The equine's situation, needless to say, is a reversal of their father's. It's a metaphor operating with a heavy hand."Montana Story" operates best as a ticking time bomb juxtaposed tonally from Kevin Morby's plaintive melodic score. The siblings often veer close to laying out their true grievances, and the closer they arrive, the sharper the jagged, rugged landscape becomes, and the colder the skin-smearing wind sounds. Their ping-pong game of nasty words - at one point Erin alludes to Cal belonging in the lowest circle of Dante's Hell, where the betrayers of special relationships reside - comes to a head during a bitter lightning storm that causes a power outage in the home. Richardson's spontaneous overflow of emotions is a gut punch, while Teague's slow emotional build to fall in a landfill of grief is acutely measured. Hits theaters on May 20, 2022.