Director/co-writer/editor Kelly Reichardt’s minimalist Western begins slowly…first, there’s a William Blake quotation: “The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.” In the prologue, a contemporary woman (Alia Shawkat), walking with her dog, discovers two human skeletons. Then there’s a flashback…
Back in the 1820s in the Oregon Territory, shy, soft-spoken Otis “Cookie” Figowitz (John Magaro) is gathering wild mushrooms when he befriends a naked Chinese immigrant, King-Lu (Orion Lee), on the run from Russians. A short time later, a wealthy Englishman (Toby Jones), known as Chief Factor, receives the area’s first bovine, arriving on a raft. Seeing the cow and appreciating Cookie’sbaking skill, King-Lu has a plan.
Late at night, they’ll sneak up to the prized cow and fill a pail with milk. Then, in the morning, when workers/trappers gather at Fort Tillicum, they’ll sell ‘oily cakes’ (fried biscuits topped with honey and cinnamon) which are an immediate success, spurring them to dream about opening a bakery in San Francisco.
Complications arise when the pompous Chief Factor asks Cookie to concoct a “clafoutis’ to impress his pretentious friends. (A ‘clafoutis’ is a French dessert in which layers of fruit are covered in batter, baked, and dusted with powdered sugar.)
Based on Jon Raymond’s novel The Half-Life, it’s adapted by Raymond and Reichardt, whose previous films—Wendy and Lucy, Old Joy, Certain Women, Meek’s Cutoff—are also set in the Pacific Northwest with unmistakable tinges of 19th-century artist Fredric Remington.
FYI: the original title was Slow Elk, which is how Oregon’s native Chinooks referred to cattle. Spare and sublimely subtle, it’s a genial tale of genuine friendship. Recommended.