Words by JANE CROWTHER
‘Can you even be a cowboy without cows?’ asks Callie-Rose, the little daughter of Colorado cowpoke Dusty (Josh O’Conner) who has lost his generational ranch to a wildfire, leaving him houseless and untethered. It’s a question writer/director Max Walker-Silverman (who previously produced A Love Song) asks in this delicate ‘slow cinema’ look at the meaning of home and the balm of community – who are any of us without our possessions? Having been almost pathological self sufficient to the point of breaking up his marriage before the fire crept over the ridge to gobble his ancient barn, family house and wooded land; taciturn Dusty finds himself trying to repair both his life and his relationship with his cute-as-a-button kid.
Moving into a FEMA–provided trailer park in the middle of the desert with other victims of the fire and given a construction job on the highway, he struggles to recognise himself or how to get back to his comfort zone. ‘That’s not me,’ he dolefully tells his former mother-in-law, Bess (Amy Madigan) of the work holding a stop/go sign, his meetings with the bank in the hope of a loan proving fruitless in the wake of a high-severity burn. He’s got no family except for that of his ex and her new boyfriend, his meagre savings won’t buy him much respite…
If that sounds bleak, it’s not. In the vein of Nomadland and Train Dreams, Rebuilding places faith in people, kindness and found community. And the healing power of a beautiful landscape, a song sung at dusk and the soft nose of a horse nuzzling a palm. Quiet compassion is woven through the ordinary struggles of Dusty; the auctioneer trying to get an above-value price on the cattle he has to sell, his ex (Meghann Fahy) and her sweet partner supporting him emotionally, in the food and companionship offered by the trailer park dwellers, in the notice in the closed library window that grants free wifi to the displaced people who flock there to fill in their online insurance forms. The folk in this south-west corner of Colorado may be economically challenged but they are rich in gorgeous sunsets and hope in starting over. A reclusive trailer park inhabitant breaks his silence when he finds it in the shoots of fresh buds from a charred tree, Dusty’s neighbour (Kali Reis) looks for it within her belief that she still likes nowhere better than this very spot, and the cowboy will ultimately rediscover his purpose in protecting a new herd.
O’Conner – so soulful in God’s Own Country – is built for such a role. Always watchful, whether observing workers clearing smoking ash from the ruins of his house or the roll of a silver river through purple twilight, he’s able to convey so much of Dusty’s feelings without ever saying a word. The cast around him is equally as affecting – particularly naturalistic Lily LaTorre as Callie-Rose and Madigan turning her recent horrific performance in Weapons on its head with little more than a warm cameo that leaves a mark as sure as the fireline.
As a small, quiet and almost slight take on hardship, Rebuilding takes no big swings, but with its faith in humanity and the idea that home isn’t necessarily where we build walls, it may just be the film we need in the current news cycle. And Jake Xerxes Fussell and James Elkington’s guitar-picking soundtrack stitches it together with love, sounding like aural big skies.
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Pictures courtesy of Bleecker Street
Rebuilding is in cinemas now
