This review was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.What makes a film or, for that matter, a life? Is it the heavy moments of tragedy that we carry with us? The small joys that are sprinkled throughout that keep us going? In writer-director Morrisa Maltz’s feature debut The Unknown Country, starring Lily Gladstone of the highly anticipated upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon from Martin Scorsese and Erica Tremblay’s sublime drama Fancy Dance, these are the fundamental questions of legacy that are swirling around. An understated yet no less arresting road drama that is interwoven with some documentary elements, it is a work that is overflowing with a subtle authenticity that grows on you until laying you flat. Eschewing more conventional storytelling elements to instead embrace the feeling of roaming the world after everything you have known has been upended, it is a film about the modern American West and all the people that make it home.

At the core of this is Gladstone’s Tana. She has just lost her grandmother who she had been caring for up until the very end. Devastated by her death, she hits the road to travel from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota after getting an invitation to her cousin’s wedding. The moment of celebration coming so close after a loss while Tana is still in mourning is further complicated by the fact that she hasn’t been back home in some time. With that weighing on her as she drives her grandmother’s Cadillac, we spend the film almost entirely with her from the moment she wakes up before the city has only just begun to come alive through her discovering a poetic personal purpose to her travels. That is, except when we hear small interviews with those she meets. Be it in a diner or a motel, the film slows down to reflect on the people that most other works would merely relegate to the background. Though every destination and person contains a beauty Maltz is delicately attuned to, it is Gladstone who emerges once more as a driving force like no other. She brings a grace to every frame, gently crafting an experience as eternal as it is magnificent. It often recalls the work of the great American filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, who Gladstone worked with on the wonderful 2016 film Certain Women, in how it observes without holding our hand. At the same time, it taps into a distinct frequency that becomes a truly unique work all its own.

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Lily Gladstone Brings a Quiet Soulfulness to ‘The Unknown Country’
Image via Music Box Films

This all makes for a film that serves as yet another showcase for Gladstone. It isn’t that the vision around her is lacking in beauty, with everything from the neon-lit world at night and the vibrancy of a sunrise near the end taking on a rather striking quality, though she makes it into something so much more in every moment. Thousands of words could be written about Gladstone’s presence and the way she explores her characters with this still not being enough to capture how she just effortlessly commands a scene. Whether it was in the aforementioned Fancy Dance or even a brief appearance in the outstanding series Reservation Dogs, she is one of the best working actors out there today for a reason. One conversation she shares with actor Richard Ray Whitman, also of Reservation Dogs as well as the 2016 drama Neither Wolf Nor Dog, midway through is this in action. For a moment, the emotion bursting through the silence when they first reconnect with each other makes you forget you’re watching two actors. Instead, it just feels like two people who have become overwhelmed with the resonance of the moment and communicate just as much through their eyes as they do their words. It is merely one potent scene of many that we make our way through that Maltz is right to let linger now and again before each is left behind as we continue onwards with Tana.

As she does so, we hear the overlapping chatter of the radio that serves as a recurring reminder of the grim reality of living in America today. It isn’t heavy-handed even as it makes explicit that there is much to be wary of in the present just as it can often feel like little can be done to change it. This is then made concrete in the interactions Lana has with people who may wish her harm. It is often authentically haunting, like when she is followed from a gas station or by drunken men at an otherwise celebratory occasion, as it starkly captures how even a simple setting can become sinister. It ensures that we aren’t given too rosy a picture of the country that could smooth over its ugliness in search of the immense beauty of its landscapes. What makes the film so effective is how Maltz molds it all together.

The rich textures of the land and the people become intertwined, telling a story that looks closely at what other filmmakers might overlook. It does so with a light touch, never falling into the darkness too much, while also remembering that it is always there. As Lana stumbles upon a photo that leads to her going in search of where it was taken, the film settles into a rhythm that proves to be quite arresting. She still meets some new people, including a brief role from a charming Raymond Lee, though it increasingly strips away all the excess noise for something unexpectedly flooring in its final scenes. When accompanied by a spectacular score by Neil Halstead and the group DYAN, it draws you in even more completely.

‘The Unknown Country’ Builds to a Dazzling Destination
Image via Music Box Films

Building towards an ending that is both rather unexpected yet utterly fitting, the film looks out to the vast horizon just as it does the internal history that its roaming character carries with her. It is the type of conclusion that could fall into being trite in a less subtle work that telegraphed its arrival, but this one thrives because of the gentle way it went about teasing out significant revelations. Gladstone doesn’t give some grand speech or proclamation to spell out what it all means, instead letting her resonant performance speak for itself. As the cutting grows more rapid, it is like we are breathing faster and faster in anticipation before one big exhale as we take it all in. Even in the moments where it can feel a little rough around the edges, the portrait being painted is a breathtaking and unrestrained one. It all comes together to ensure that, in the long cinematic history of American road movies, The Unknown Country carves out an indelible legacy of its own all the way to its final series of shattering shots.

Rating: A-

The Big Picture The Unknown Country is an understated road drama that explores questions of legacy. Gladstone’s performance is captivating as she brings a graceful authenticity to every frame. The film effectively intertwines the beauty of the American landscape with the grim reality of modern America, creating an emotionally epic experience all its own. The Unknown Country is in theaters starting July 28.