''The Cold Lands'' is a 2013 drama film directed by Tom Gilroy. It stars Silas Yelich as Atticus Garfield,

Lili Taylor Lili Anne Taylor (born February 20, 1967) is an American actress. She came to prominence with supporting parts in the films ''Mystic Pizza'' (1988) and '' Say Anything...'' (1989), before establishing herself as one of the key figures of 1990s i ...

as his mother Nicole, and

Peter Scanavino Peter Muller Scanavino (born February 29, 1980) is an American actor. He currently stars as ADA Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr. in the long-running NBC crime/legal drama series '' Law & Order: Special Victims Unit''. Career Since 2005, Scanavino ha ...

as Carter. The film premiered in February 2013 at the Berlin Film Festival and was screened at various festivals throughout 2013 and 2014.

Plot

After 11-year-old Atticus Garfield's ( Silas Yelich) mother Nichole (

) dies suddenly, Atticus runs away from home to live in the

Catskills The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas c ...

by himself, surviving on whatever he can find. While dealing with his mother's death and living alone in the wilderness, Atticus encounters a hippie named Carter (

), who sells necklaces at festivals and lives in his car. The two become dependent on each other, though neither is comfortable with the alliance.

Cast

* Silas Yelich as Atticus Garfield *

as Nicole * Maggie Low as Maggie *

as Carter *

Nick Sandow Nick Sandow (born August 3, 1966) is an American actor, writer, producer and director, best known for his role as Joe Caputo in ''Orange Is the New Black''. Early life Of Italian descent, Sandow grew up in the Italian neighborhood of Van Nest ...

as Foreman *

John Ventimiglia John Ventimiglia (, ) is an American actor. He portrayed Artie Bucco in the HBO television series ''The Sopranos'' and had a recurring role as Dino Arbogast, an Organized Crime Control Bureau Chief for the NYPD, on the American police procedu ...

as Jackson * Trace Henderson as Addison * Jonathan Gatt as Cashier * Deb Monteith as EMT * Peter Rufa as Grillman

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

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 ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 64% based on 11 reviews, with an average rating of 6.35/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that 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 average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has 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 ...

score of 66 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

reviewer Emily VanDerWerff gave ''The Cold Lands'' a B− rating, stating, "There are the bones of the stereotypical “loser has his life turned around by a kid” story here, but Gilroy takes all of this to a more realistic, more interesting place, and he manages to find an ending for the story that offers a touch of optimism but doesn’t feel like a cheat."

Accolades

Nashville Film Festival The Nashville Film Festival (NashFilm), held annually in Nashville, Tennessee, is the oldest running film festival in the South and one of the oldest in the United States. In 2016, Nashville Film Festival received more than 6,700 submissions from ...

- 2013, ''Special Jury Prize - Promising Actor ( Silas Yelich) *

São Paulo International Film Festival The São Paulo International Film Festival ( pt, Mostra Internacional de Cinema de São Paulo), also known internationally as Mostra, is an annual film festival held in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. A non-profit event, the festival is organized ...

- 2013, ''Best Feature Film'' (Nominated)

Soundtrack

Michael Stipe John Michael Stipe (; born January 4, 1960) is an American singer-songwriter and artist, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of alternative rock band R.E.M. He is known for his vocal quality, poetic lyrics and unique stage presence. Pos ...

has worked with Director/Screenwriter Tom Gilroy on a variety of projects for decades. Stipe agreed to create the soundtrack for ''The Cold Lands'', which was his first work since

R.E.M. R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. One of the first alternati ...

disbanded in 2011. However, the final original score heard in the film was composed by

Hahn Rowe Hahn Rowe is an American violinist, guitarist, composer, and engineer/producer, involved in a wide range of projects. He also performs using the stage name Somatic. Career Originally a violinist and guitarist with New York City dream-poppers H ...

, known for his work with the band

Hugo Largo Hugo Largo was an American musical group formed in 1984, known for their unique lineup: two bass guitars, a violin and singer/performance artist Mimi Goese. Their sound has been characterized as art rock, dream pop, ambient and avant-rock. Hist ...

. The song heard in the opening and closing credits is
Rhymes of an Hour
by

Mazzy Star Mazzy Star is an American alternative rock band formed in 1988 in Santa Monica, California, from remnants of the group Opal. Founding member David Roback's friend Hope Sandoval became the group's vocalist when Kendra Smith left Opal. Mazzy St ...

References

External links

* * 2013 films American drama films 2013 drama films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films {{2010s-drama-film-stub