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First Cow Movie Review

First Cow is a 2020 drama film directed by Kelly Reichardt and starring John Magaro. It’s a film that had potential, but ended up being too boring.

Two travelers, on the run from a band of vengeful hunters in the 1820s Northwest, dream of striking it rich – but their tenuous plan to make their fortune on the frontier comes to rely on the secret use of a landowner’s prized dairy cow. The main problem with this movie is that it’s simply not meant for the cinematic treatment.

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It was obviously based on a novel, and I bet the novel is much better as this type of storyline is more suitable for literary treatment. It has way too many characters, small, not that relevant details and a lack of momentum that it was difficult to get engaged with it at all.

What I liked in First Cow is its attention to detail. It transports you to the 1820s Northwest stupendously and simply seeing the frontier, the farming and the everyday lives these people lived back then was quite interesting. The movie is charming in its lack of momentum, but also definitely problematic for being this uneventful and this small-scale.

I found the performances just solid, nothing particularly great as the cast is pretty much an indie cast of unknown actors. The characters are solidly developed, especially the main ones such as Cookie and Lu, but overall I wasn’t particularly enamored with any single one of them. Again, they are just serviceable as is this entire movie.

First Cow is technically very strong. The cinematography is excellent, the details are meticulous and the overall production is very well crafted with great costumes and imagery. However, Kelly Reichardt directed the movie in a very unappealing, uninteresting manner, and I found her direction and this entire movie very overrated. It’s a typical film meant for the critics to enjoy and never the audiences.

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Albeit First Cow is very well done technically speaking, it transports you to its time period and setting so well and it has its charming moments, it’s ultimately a movie that is so devoid of momentum, so not meant for the cinematic treatment and so weakly paced and directed, leading to a typical product that is made for the critics only.

My Rating – 3

You can get First Cow on Amazon.