For much of First Cow, a new movie by director Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women) set in 19th-century Oregon Territory, the actors’ hands are hardly ever still. They pick berries, stitch clothes, shell mussels, mix dough. We first see the protagonist, Cookie, as he reaches for a wild mushroom nestled among ferns. Encountering a stunned lizard, his dirty but gentle hands set the creature on its feet. It’s a lovely moment of characterization that’s typical of this movie: poetic, earthy, and tender.
The depiction of Cookie (played by a soft-eyed John Magaro) is the first of many subtle strikes against the white American mythology of the frontier. He seems badly equipped to survive among the ill-tempered gold diggers and other fortune seekers drinking and shooting their way through occupied Native lands. Tagging miserably along with a group of fur trappers, Cookie shies away from brawls, submits to verbal abuse, and remains on the margins of the white community at a rough trading post.
