Meek’s Cutoff is a stark and poetic Western set in 1845, the earliest days of the treacherous Oregon Trail. A wagon train of three families has hired mountain man Stephen Meek to guide them over the Cascade Mountains. “Over and over this movie does things differently than other movies. Kelly Reichardt is brave and stubborn. Like the characters in her film, she’s determined to find her way to beautiful, sustaining new territories and she knows she can only rely on her own instincts and judgment to figure out, moment by moment, how to get there” (Richard Hell).