First Cow

Despite accolades, critics have used words like "simple" and "modest" in reviews of  Kelly Reichardt's First Cow, and at least one described the film as a "slow-moving story with a big heart." Those may be fair evaluations, as Reichardt works from a minimalist perspective. The screenwriter and director described her style in a 2014 interview with The Guardian as: "My films are just glimpses of people passing through."

But I found First Cow to be a complicated, multi-layered story about relationship, passion, and ambition.

Cookie Figowitz and King-Lu (played by John Magaro and Orion Lee) meet briefly by chance during a fur trapping expedition, then connect again several days later at a trading post in the burgeoning Pacific Northwest.  The two men have dramatically different personalities: Cookie is a gentle artist, a trained baker who seldom talks but has something important to say when he does, while King-Lu is drawn to enterprise and wealth, and seems forever focused on his next exciting adventure.

The combination of their talents, combined with the first milking cow in the Territory of Oregon, furthers the plot and allows the audience to become emotionally invested in the story. We know early that the ending won't be happy, but the journey to the end can be.

The relationship that forms between Cookie and King-Lu is complex. Both men spent the majority of their young lives on the move, never really settling down anywhere or with anyone. But very quickly each comes to trust the other, and they develop an unusually deep relationship.

Is it platonic? Romantic?

Reichardt doesn't provide that answer, and it really doesn't matter. It's enough to know that one man is the yin to the yang of the other. A beautiful scene early in the film, when the men first reconnect, illustrates this. King-Lu invites Cookie to visit his shack for a drink then goes off to split wood for a fire, leaving Cookie standing alone in the threshold of his home. After a few second of awkward uncertainty, Cookie picks up a broom and starts sweeping the floor.

He's home.

It matters not whether the love the two men feel for each other is romantic or platonic. What is important is that each found something in the other that fills a void. As individuals they are flawed and empty; together they are complete.