The explorer movie is always wrought with peril everywhere in search of opportunity. I mean, Leo DiCaprio was mauled by a bear! Kelly Reichart’s First Cow shows that fear and opportunity with a sweet, compelling hand, using an udderly strange choice for a pivotal character in the movie. That’ll be the one cow pun, I promise.
Gold rushes spurned all sorts of exploration of the Pacific Northwest in the early to mid 1800s. Some of those groups needed people like “Cookie” (John Magaro), cooks who made do with what nature offered at the time. Cookie runs into King-Lu (Orion Lee), a Chinese explorer on the run accused of stealing. The two join forces in a little settlement when Chief Factor (Toby Jones) who runs the town imports a cow into his household. The two steal milk from the cow at night so Cookie can use his talents to make the best biscuits and cakes in the West, and King can use his salesmanship to make their little scam into a big enterprise as big as their dreams.
In this little film, Kelly Reichardt captures the life of an explorer, in a society whose rules are not built yet. Reichardt paints a world of stillness, where you spend your days finding friends and daydreaming when survival is assured. New things like a cow and your friend’s cooking abilities make ideas spin in your head. Little treats like a good biscuit become a new opportunity, which spreads like wildfire in a small community. As more people become involved, the risk grows higher, attracting the attention of say, the owner of the cow, who has a militia. Conversely, the reward also grows, making those impossible dreams a potential reality, if they both just hold out a few more days/weeks. The knife’s edge and worry keeps the movie going forward, since a house built on milk based baked goods cannot stand; the question is, when the shoe drops, what will happen?
John Magaro and Orion Lee have been character acting in bit parts for a long time now, and were overdue for a starring role. Both of them acclimate themselves well here. Magaro, versatile actor that he is, gives Cookie a mildly nervous sentimentality, with a sweet exterior. Through little chats with the cow he’s milking or our intro to his and King’s friendship, we’re instantly on the side of Magaro and his innocent crusade to sell baked goods for a little hotel. Lee, lesser known, gets to show what he can do. Lee is Magaro’s opposite. He’s more daring, and dreams for both of them, since all he brings to the table is salesmanship. This dichotomy works well between the two of them, as they complement each other perfectly. No matter how bad things get for both of them, they both know they have each other, and they’ll figure it out together, a great movie version of a platonic love story.
First Cow isn’t really about the cow. As the quote early on says, this is a movie about friendship. A good friendship has a way of bringing out the best in people, pushing participating humans in the friendship into becoming bigger and better people as a result. As Kelly Reichardt shows, people become friends. Friends become a community. Communities become a country.