(Sun 12th - Tue 14th @ 8pm, Weds 15th Babycinema 11am / £5/4/3 TTT, Babycinema)
Is this a Western? Well... It is bleak, and a small group of white folk break set out to cross the vast plains on the Oregon Trail to find a new life prospecting for gold in the mountains. They are led by a grizzly professional guide who appears to be confused about the direction, Mr Meek (Will Patton).
However, the handling of the story is contemporary. Meek's Cutoff has a female director (Kelly Reichardt - Old Joy/ Wendy and Lucy) and the palpable emotional intensity of the film comes from following the female characters (Michelle Williams and Shirley Henderson). We follow the conflict of the women dragged into an increasingly perillous and uncertain situation set against extreme but very beautiful natural landscapes. The trek becomes gruelling and the
sensitivity lies in the subtle way we watch the women in their environment, and the men making decisions with each other, their guide, and a mysterious native Indian who may be able to save them.

Meek's Cutoff is a beautiful, tense and credible drama which captures the frightening unknowability of truth through the eyes of women caught up in a situation that they cannot control and must endure.