Sundance 2021: Land Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Sundance Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Land is the directorial debut of actress Robin Wright and also stars in the film. She plays a woman named Edee who is so traumatized by living she decides to get a cabin high in the mountains to stay away from the world. A man discovers her in the mountains one day and they start blossoming a friendship as she deals with her inner turmoils. The film has the unfortunate task of following up Nomadland for which it shares strong parallels with. Both are about women disenfranchised with life who decide to take matters into their own hands. This film, however, pales in comparison to the former.

Though Land is sure to be a crowd pleaser, it’s biggest issue isn’t the fact it resembles Nomadland, it is essentially way too heavy-handed. The film, early on, provides everything viewers need to know for the most part. From there, they will be treated to a predictable story that offers much in the way of surprises or will subvert expectations, resulting in a vanilla film. To its credit, the film takes a more methodical and visual approach to its storytelling but yet that approach feels so obvious. The dialogue also just isn’t quite there. The writers here seemed to have written dialogue by ear but sadly all of the dialogue feels too much like a script.

Wright does a good job as the lead and the film looks gorgeous. Meanwhile, the music also has a calming lush to it reminiscent of midwest sensibilities. The writing certainly could have been stronger as it held Land back from being a truly delightful film. Instead, the result was a roughly 90 minute film that will feel like twice that.

still courtesy of Sundance

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Brett Schutt

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