An eco-terrorism thriller with a hard shell and a heart full of moral imponderables, Reichardt's new movie will please those who enjoyed her lyrical, almost hallucinatory quasi-Western Meek's Cutoff.
Like her three previous features, this one's set in Oregon, where we meet Josh (Eisenberg) and Dena (Fanning) as they silently inspect a hydro dam in the mountains.
They are unlikely partners in what we quickly sense they are planning: he's a surly loser who does unskilled work on an organic co-op farm; she has rejected a privileged upbringing to work at a spa resort, though not before gathering the funds to bankroll the operation. They are joined by Harmon (Sarsgaard), an ex-Marine who is the bomb-making brains.
We have no idea what brought them together: they seem driven more by an inchoate nihilism than idealism and as the trio forms, there's a fractious, edgy quality to the action and dialogue that makes us as nervy as they plainly are.
But Reichardt seems less interested in the conspiracy - the explosion, when it comes, is a distant background rumble, like a thunderclap - than in its aftermath.
