- Starring
- John Magaro, Orion Lee, Rene Auberjonois
- Writers
- Jonathan Raymond, Kelly Reichardt
- Director
- Kelly Reichardt
- Rating
- PG (Canada), PG-13 (United States)
- Running Time
- 123 minutes
- Release Date
- July 10th, 2020
Overall Score
Rating Summary
First Cow, the latest film from the ever-popular A24 directed by the acclaimed filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, has been one anticipated by many but became one of the many films impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, seeing its initial limited theatrical release rescinded until a more favorable VOD release this weekend. Is this wait worth it? While it definitely is worth the watch, it is a film that will certainly grow on viewers long after watching. That being said, it is tough to provide a fair opinion of the film at this point.
To start off, First Cow is a beautiful looking film. Being a sucker for the 4:3 aspect ratio, it definitely looks great here. Everything is so perfectly framed, it already feels like it belongs as part of the Criterion Collection. There will surely be countless editorials about the odd choices made with shot composition in this film. This film’s ability to create such a rich and warm atmosphere is incredible. The film started off decent enough as a nice slice of life film about this mans journey into different towns seeing conflict happen among different parts of rural society. However where the film started to loose me is when the plot started to emerge.
First Cow merely follows a man named Cookie Figowitz (Magaro) who later joins forces with a man named King Lu (Lee) to steal milk from a cow to create pastries to sell. This little plot may be enough for a short film or maybe even an eighty minute film. This film’s running time is two hours because it features so much dead space. While films that meander and have no linear plot aren’t necessarily a bad thing, the wasted space here is only used to create more atmosphere and not give deeper context into the characters. As a result, it was difficult to make any type of emotional connection with either the story or the characters. By the film’s emotional climax, it felt somewhat hollow and unearned.
The opinions expressed in this review may change years later in retrospect so sharing them now doesn’t quite feel right at this moment. There’s so much to love about First Cow. The score is also so inviting and wonderful but in the end, the second half of this film just dragged on which only aggravated its long running time. While everything is filmed to perfection and looks incendiary- this might have come at the expense of some serious characterization. One need not know everything about these characters but rather enough to at least appreciate their respective journeys.
At the end of the day, First Cow is a film that will succeed among many audiences although personally, the film left something to be desired despite still enjoying it. However, this was exactly the film Reichardt wanted it to be and for that, it is worth watching. This reviewer’s deeper appreciation for it may come someday but for now, the plot was too simple for it to resonate as much as it should have.
