''Montana Story'' is a 2021 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

written and directed by

Scott McGehee Scott McGehee (born April 20, 1962) is an American filmmaker. He is a Columbia University graduate and did graduate work in the Rhetoric department at UC Berkeley. He was born in California, and currently resides in New York City. McGehee is ...

and David Siegel. The film stars

Haley Lu Richardson Haley Lu Richardson (born March 7, 1995) is an American actress. Following early television roles on the Disney Channel sitcom ''Shake It Up'' (2013) and the ABC Family supernatural drama '' Ravenswood'' (2013–2014), she acted in the coming-o ...

and

Owen Teague Owen William Teague (born December 8, 1998) is an American actor. He was born and raised in Tampa, Florida, and is known for his roles in ''The Stand'', '' Mrs. Fletcher'', '' Inherit the Viper'', '' To Leslie'', '' Montana Story'', '' Gone in t ...

. Two siblings return to their family's

ranch A ranch (from es, rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of a farm. These terms are most often ...

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

after their father falls into a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

. It was released in the United States on May 13, 2022, by

Bleecker Street Bleecker Street is an east–west street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street connects a neighborhood today popular for music venues and comedy, but which was ...

Plot

Estranged, twenty-something,

half-siblings A sibling is a relative that shares at least one parent with the subject. A male sibling is a brother and a female sibling is a sister. A person with no siblings is an only child. While some circumstances can cause siblings to be raised separat ...

Cal and Erin return to the vast Montana ranch they once called home after their father has fallen into a coma and is now on

life support Life support comprises the treatments and techniques performed in an emergency in order to support life after the failure of one or more vital organs. Healthcare providers and emergency medical technicians are generally certified to perform basic ...

. Erin's mother died in childbirth, while Cal's mother died two years ago. The housekeeper and family friend, Valentina, has been holding down the fort.

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

n immigrant nurse, Ace (a nickname he uses since people in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

have trouble pronouncing his real name) has been providing life-sustaining care to the siblings' father. Since their father isn't expected to recover, Cal begins selling and donating the ranch's assets. He has conflicted feelings towards his father, due to past

abuse Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other t ...

. Erin, who remains angry about the abuse, plans to take the family's elderly horse, Mr. T, back to her home in

Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley (also known as the Hudson River Valley) comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York. The region stretches from the Capital District including Albany and Troy south to ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. Cal explains to Ace that, seven years ago, his father was a lawyer who helped cover up a toxic incident at the Copperhead

open-pit mine Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock (geology), rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a Borrow pit, b ...

. Erin wrote an article that was published in a local paper, exposing the corruption. Their father violently assaulted her and killed her horse, Pepper. Erin ran away from home that night. Cal tried to track her down, but she actively avoided being found and he eventually stopped looking. Cal tries to open up to Erin, telling her about his life in

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...

Wyoming Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...

, and his goal to be a

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

. However, she remains closed off. She decides to purchase an old truck and

horse trailer A horse trailer or horse van (also called a horse float in Australia and New Zealand or horsebox in the British Isles) is used to transport horses. There are many different designs, ranging in size from small units capable of holding two or thre ...

to transport Mr. T, though Cal worries about the reliability of the truck. The seller, Mukki, tells Erin that he's

Mohican The Mohican ( or , alternate spelling: Mahican) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, who ...

and his family fled west over time to avoid violence. The truck breaks down on the road, and the siblings wait for Valentina's son, Joey, to arrive with a

tow truck A tow truck (also called a wrecker, a breakdown truck, recovery vehicle or a breakdown lorry) is a truck used to move disabled, improperly parked, impounded, or otherwise indisposed motor vehicles. This may involve recovering a vehicle damaged ...

. Erin tells Cal that she's a trained cook who now works in a restaurant that uses every part of the animal. The siblings visit the Copperhead Mine, which Erin compares to the seven circles of

Hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

's ''

Inferno Inferno may refer to: * Hell, an afterlife place of suffering * Conflagration, a large uncontrolled fire Film * ''L'Inferno'', a 1911 Italian film * Inferno (1953 film), ''Inferno'' (1953 film), a film noir by Roy Ward Baker * Inferno (1973 fi ...

''. She also meditates on the deceptiveness of the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

's mythology. During a thunderstorm and resulting power outage, Cal struggles to get a back-up

generator Generator may refer to: * Signal generator, electronic devices that generate repeating or non-repeating electronic signals * Electric generator, a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. * Generator (circuit theory), an eleme ...

working. Since the life support system is down, the siblings' father suffers a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...

. Ace struggles to keep his patient alive, enlisting Erin to manually pump a

bag valve mask A bag valve mask (BVM), sometimes known by the proprietary name Ambu bag or generically as a manual resuscitator or "self-inflating bag", is a hand-held device commonly used to provide positive pressure ventilation to patients who are not breathin ...

to keep her father breathing. After the power returns, Erin is upset that she has saved her father's life. She emotionally confronts Cal about him witnessing their father beating and severely injuring her to the point of hospitalization. She berates him for having not helped her in any way. Cal admits he was afraid to intervene and still feels guilty. Later that night, when Cal thinks he's alone, he talks to his father about the older man's lack of happiness in life. Erin watches from the doorway as her father

flatlines Asystole (New Latin, from Greek privative a "not, without" + ''systolē'' "contraction") is the absence of ventricular contractions in the context of a lethal heart arrhythmia (in contrast to an induced asystole on a cooled patient on a heart-lun ...

and dies. It's not shown, but heavily implied that Cal disconnected his father from life support. Ace covers for Cal, saying the death was due to the heart attack that occurred during the power outage. As the siblings go their separate ways, Erin asks Cal to keep in touch and he agrees to do so. Instead of taking Mr. T with her, Erin arranges for him to live on Mukki's ranch with a herd of other horses.

Cast

as Erin *

as Cal * Kimberly Guerrero as Valentina * Gilbert Owuor as Ace *

Asivak Koostachin Asivak Koostachin (born 1994) is a Cree-Inuk actor from Canada, most noted for his performances in the films ''Red Snow'' and '' Run Woman Run''. The son of filmmaker Jules Arita Koostachin, he had his first major acting role in the APTN drama se ...

as Joey *

Eugene Brave Rock Eugene Brave Rock is a Canadian actor and stunt man. Brave Rock started as an actor, before being trained as a stuntman; he later appeared in various minor television roles before landing his first major film role as Chief in ''Wonder Woman''. ...

as Mukki

Production

The film was shot in Paradise Valley south of

Livingston, Montana Livingston is a city and county seat of Park County, Montana, United States. It is in southwestern Montana, on the Yellowstone River, north of Yellowstone National Park. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 8,040. History T ...

during a period of six weeks from November to December 2020 under strict

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

protocols. The film premiered in the

Platform Prize The Platform Prize is an annual film award, presented by the Toronto International Film Festival to films of "high artistic merit that also demonstrate a strong directorial vision."Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

on September 12, 2021. In November 2021,

acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film.

Reception

In the United States and Canada, the film earned $17,284 from four theaters in its opening weekend, and $19,882 from 24 theaters in its second weekend. After expanding to 290 theaters, it made $98,762 in its third weekend, and $25,953 in its fourth. On the review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, 87% of 88 reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''Montana Story'' takes a gut-wrenching look at family trauma, brought brilliantly to life by Haley Lu Richardson and Owen Teague."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which uses a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

, assigned the film a score of 73 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* {{Scott McGehee and David Siegel 2021 films 2021 drama films 2020s English-language films American drama films Bleecker Street films Films impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic Films set in Montana Films shot in Montana Films about abuse Films about siblings 2020s American films