Montana Story

Owen Teague and Haley Lu Richardson are outstanding in this beautiful family drama. They are both so believable as siblings damaged by their father's anger and violence. Owen, especially, gives a heartbreaking performance. The acting and cinematography are mesmerizing.

So well acted by everyone involved, perfect casting. Liked the way the story developed seeing relationships and consequences of actions and choices, while still offering hope. Was very grateful certain things were subtle or implied and not shown. Liked the evolution and insight gained, also the music and the peace felt at the end.

The actors don't have a lot of dialogue but when they do, it is very powerful. Great story and beautiful views of Big Sky Country.

Directors David Segel and Scott McGehee present an honest family western drama I only know Haley Lu Richardson here, she co-stars with Owen Teague Siblings Erin and Cal return home to care for their dying father They became estranged after the ranch changed and their father fell into a coma Cal sells and donates the assets and has strict conflicting feelings since he suffered abuse as a youngster Erin is also upset about it and plans to take the family's elder horse All of this traces back to an article Erin wrote exposing a conspiracy her father stumbled upon; in a violent rage he killed Erin's horse and she ran away Cal couldn't find her for so long The movie is very long winded in its dialogue and I was really expecting more of some crazy melodrama taking place Still this is a true-to-life portrait of family trauma showing that even siblings can still care but also have their own reasons to disagree dealing with it Good acting on both these leads and the scenery is breathtaking Lots about rivalry and repressed memories and secrets It was hard to be honest to stay awake for most of this This needed more tension to be involving and not be so languid in its pacing

A beautiful quiet little diamond of film wrapped up in wonderful acting from a small cast. The directing, acting, cinematography, and writing were all stunning and understated at the same time. It's a film about family trauma and the steps taken to begin healing. It's relatable in that so many families can easily be ripped apart because of one person's abuse toward another. It tears the seams of the fabric with which the entire family connects and we see siblings struggle to understand each other, be honest with one another, and eventuality begin to repair what is left. The ending was perfection.

It is a raw depiction of a broken family. Dark and depressing for sure and even slow at times but I was so engrossed in the raw emotions of the 2 main characters that I never got bored or disinterested.

Having watched little other than powerhouse adventure and action movies and (mostly) dark comedies, of late, I was intrigued . . . nay, lured . . . into watching MONTANA STORY by the lack of description and not being able to find a trailer or preview. My fears of A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, notwithstanding, I plunged headfirst into the story of estranged siblings reuniting during their comatose father's final hours. I struggled to "feel" where the film was going, mostly having been numbed by the louder, more adventurous fare I'd been feeding off, even though it was beautiful to look at. Suddenly, and I said this out loud, "Mon dieu, la nouvelle vague dans le Montana!" Indeed, while the story was decidedly different, and it is shot in breathtaking color, elements of its quiet stillness, the unglamorous realness of the faces being shot, reminded me so much of Chabrol's "Le Beau Serge" (amongst the films I adore the most), in a way that one doesn't typically think of in movies set in the Great American West. There are long stretches - pauses of awkward silences, as we're kept from knowing the truth of Cal and Erin, what drove them apart and what secrets they share that keep them this way. Everything is revealed in its time, like picking at a scab, slowly revealing the scar beneath it. Trapped beneath the Big Sky, the vistas of mountains almost out of alien terrains, and across miles of barren and seemingly endless nothingness everything unfolds. At times it feels like one is looking at photographs or paintings more than a cinematic story. But it is cinematic in every sense possible. As Cal, Owen Teague is marvelous, a handsome face caught somewhere between sadness, confusion and pain, moving ghostlike, haunted and quiet. Haley Lu Richardson's Erin appears in a similar, yet wholly different mask, anger, resentment, and strength illuminating every part of her body and face. The choices each actor makes are rather remarkable, and, again, hue back to the "normalcy" and quiet of those French New Wave films I love so much. Moments that would be "milked for drama" by other actors in other films, here instead pass with an underplayed intensity that makes those moments - at least to this viewer - all the more wrenchingly powerful. The supporting cast, Kimberly Norris Guerrero, Asivak Koostachin, Eugene Brave Rock, each contribute enormously. While frequently in the background, they are no less powerful and their presence and interactions with Erin and Cal help complete the story. If my review sounds a bit vague, it is on purpose. I think the less one knows about the story, the better the appreciation one may find in it. This is one of those "little films" that, owing to its nature, lack of Star Power, may well get lost in the shuffle. There is a gem here waiting for those willing to discover it.

Haley Lu Richardson and Owen Teague have a chemistry like a brick to the side of the head in a film that needed to be recast and rethought. There is not much to the script and only here and there do we get the back story sprinkled in. The film gets super dark in the third act, and perhaps could have used a flashback just to make it a touch more powerful. I didn't have any emotional investment to the people I should have and was often bored. It is, however, shot in some gorgeous parts of Montana so with the sound down, it's lovely. Final Score: 3.7/10

i liked it very much a movie with a real story about life alot better than the movies they make today all you see today is violance and mahem

Spoilers: Haley Lu is magnetic, truly a budding superstar who never seems to be acting, Owen is very good, health aide Gilbert as the wise, Nigerian calming influence thrust into a turbulent family is very good, as the Big Sky and big land, with cowboy hats, Indian feathers, farmhouse, horses, don't fence me in out West, with Copperhead like the Grand Canyon and Dante's Inferno at once, set the scene of remote rural Montana, where you can get away but not away from the dark side of human nature, no, sir, as we also see Native Americans including the Dad's housekeeper scraping hard to barely get by. As their Dad is comatose on his death bed in the first-floor study, in come his offspring and half-siblings Owen, maybe 22, and for some inexplicable reason, Haley Lu, 25, who had been beaten and shot by dear old smarmy corporate lawyer Dad almost to death seven years earlier and ran away as soon as she recovered, which Owen revealed to Gilbert. Did she forgive Dad? Can you take the girl, now a cook, out of Montana to upstate New York, but you can't take Montana out of the girl? Was she looking for closure? Owen shows first, having traveled from Wyoming, then shows up firecracker Haley Lu, who hadn't seen nor talked to brother nor Dad since she ran away. After the movie's somewhat slow start, we get why she hates Dad, but why the rift between her and more laid-back bro? So forgiveness and the pain of both abuse and betrayal take center stage. Haley Lu never does forgive Dad, though she is pressed into duty, keeping him alive via an ambu bag for breathing during an electrical outage as Gilbert performed CPR. But when she insists to Owen where were you, and Owen says I ran to the barn to get the generator to restore electricity for his respirator, she says no, where were you seven years ago. He was there when Dad nearly killed her and did not intervene. He cries and says, "I don't know why I didn't try to stop him, maybe I was a coward or just stupid, but I ask myself that every day, I am so, so sorry, I see your face every day when I wake up, I miss you so much." So that's why she came, to put that to rest one way or another, and she gives her head just one gentle shake up and down, leaves the room, but as she walks behind him, lifts her hand and puts it on his shoulder, giving him a squeeze. Dad dies, with just Owen in the room, as he had leaned down to Dad's face and said your life has been so sad, maybe you would be better off dead. We are not sure if he helped Dad along to the next world, maybe as the defense of Haley Lu he could not make years ago, though it's strongly suggested, as Gilbert had said his vital signs were good again after electricity restoration. As Owen takes Haley Lu to the airport for New York, she says call me, soon, and they haltingly give each other a hug, which becomes a long and fervent hug, as he prepares to head back to Cheyenne and an engineer job. They were very close as kids and neither could let anything stand between them in the end. They make provision for care of the one old horse, Mr. T, left on the cattle-less cattle ranch, a metaphor for the decline of the old West. Cook Haley had prepared a last dinner for Gilbert and the two of them, just after going outside with a butcher knife and big bowl, grabbing one of the scampering chickens and killing it between her legs and collecting its blood, another metaphor for how the old West was indeed dead for them, bloodless, chicken dinner or no. So well acted, and written, with high production values. An offbeat and upbeat slice of life on survival despite near death trauma, and forgiveness and restoration of family ties.