The Unknown Country

In telling a story with surreal and/or other-worldly aspects, there's a big difference between "mystical" and "mystifying," and that's where this second feature from writer-director Morissa Maltz misses the mark. This dreamlike road trip tale of a Native American woman (Lily Gladstone) recovering from the loss of her beloved grandmother follows her on a personal vision quest of sorts across the Midwest and Southern Great Plains. She leaves her home in Minneapolis and travels first to South Dakota to attend her cousin's wedding and to reconnect with her family and culture, especially the impact of ancestors and spirit guides in everyday life. From there she drives to Texas to see if she can connect with the legacy of her grandmother in the state's Big Bend region, a favored place of her late nana. In between, she encounters an array of individuals and events that strengthen (but don't always explain) her bond to a heritage she seems to have left behind some time ago. At first glance, this narrative would seem to have the makings of an enlightening and inspiring journey of self-discovery, and that's true to a certain extent. However, these themes are never fleshed out as fully as they could have been. While it's understandable how such a story might have a certain intrinsic enigmatic quality about it, it's so subdued as to essentially become cryptic, even puzzling. The narrative here is said to be based on the filmmaker's own experiences, yet, regrettably, that may be the problem - the director is too close to the material to effectively convey what she's trying to say to outsiders. A framework for the aforementioned themes would appear to be in place, but the handling of many sequences can be so vague that audiences may have difficulty assessing what the filmmaker is trying to convey, let alone even what's transpiring. This is further hampered by a lack of the protagonist's character development, which offers little in the way of back story and scant clarity on what she's seeking to accomplish through this undertaking. Consequently, the film relies on an array of undefined reaction shots, combined with narrated anecdotes from other characters and a wealth of gorgeous landscape shots that beautifully depict the region's wide open spaces but add little substance, suggesting that they may have been incorporated to pad an already-short 1:25:00 runtime. The overall style here is thus reminiscent of the movies of Terrence Malick and Chloé Zhao (particularly "Nomadland" (2020)), auteurs whose works are themselves often challenging to follow but are certainly a cut above what's on offer here. Unfortunately, "The Unknown Country" represents a missed opportunity to provide valuable insight into the life of an individual and the ways of a culture that could have been uplifting for others faced with similar circumstances. Instead, though, it comes across more like a collection of disjointed images and underdeveloped story threads that had potential but that never materialized as effectively as they might have been.

Tana (Lily Gladstone) had been taking care of her late grandmother. She gets an invitation to a family wedding. She goes back to her tribal homeland which she left as a child. She continues on a cross country trip encountering intriguing strangers and an old photograph of her grandmother.

It would be nice to have a final goal or an idea of a destination for this road trip. The turns are a bit random. At times, I don't know what's happening or why. Individually, these encounters are sometimes interesting. Lily does fine, but it's not always easy to read her. Maybe if she has a sidekick friend accompanying her.

Reminded me of Nomadland, a film that did nothing for me personally. Look, if you like films with pretty postcard cinematography and plotless slice-of-life storytelling, then this is for you.

The documentary-esque scenes interviewing random non-actors that "rising star" Lily Gladstone encounters on her journey may appeal to some, but I found them unaffecting and disingenuous. The people were so obviously acting unnaturally during the scenes where they were supposed to be interacting with the character Lily plays. You can't pretend they weren't voguing because they knew they were on camera, which means it was no longer captured reality in any sense.

The format also severely limits the negative interactions that can take place because these non-actors are obviously going to want to seem pleasant and high-energy on camera. They share their homespun wisdom which lacks real insight and offers the viewer nothing to latch onto, really. The only real humanity here is etched in the wrinkles on their faces, something standard Hollywood fare is normally reluctant to feature in its stars. Some will find seeing these non-actors on camera refreshing, but I personally couldn't get past how sugarcoated everything was.

Gladstone has a pleasing presence, but she's not asked to do much emoting. She wanders from place to place, having quotidian interactions with strangers and engaging in the most banal of conversations. The format of these unnatural interactions ensures that Gladstone comes across as a passive viewpoint character. At some juncture, I expected the film to do the requisite character development for a film, but it never did. Nothing Gladstone's character says gives us much indication of who she is or what motivates her. We have a dead grandmother. That's it.

Finally, the big question, was this film saying anything important? I'm sure many reviewers, myself included, want to give this film credit for portraying aspects of the American experience less-seen in film. However, Morrisa Maltz has absolutely nothing to say about these experiences, either visually or through character's dialogue. We listen to countless radio hosts share opinions on numerous issues as Gladstone channel surfs during her long drive. But we are given no indication of what Gladstone thinks of these opinions or visual context to iron out Maltz's understanding. The scenes with Native American characters seem designed purely to convey the humanity of these people. Is that such a novel concept in 2024 that we have to give a film credit for putting it on display?

The conversations these characters feature in are dull as dishwater and offer no insight into their feelings about anything except quotidian existence. One scene features a character telling us the names of all the children in a room and their ages. In a fictional film, this would never be tolerated because it's information we don't need to remember about characters that don't even speak. Documentary filmmakers need to adapt more effectively to the needs of narrative filmmaking if they want their movies to engage. At 1 hour and 25 minutes, this film was a drag for me personally.

Sometimes movies can be too personal.

I saw the writer/director of "The Unknown Country," Morissa Maltz, talk about her film after a showing at Chicago's Music Box Theater. She was inspired by her own experiences driving across the country as a lone female, and the fear and exhilaration that experience made her feel. In the movie, the main character is traveling from Minnesota to Texas to stand in the same spot as her recently deceased grandmother did in a cherished photo. Maltz also did this. Any of this could be used to craft a relatable, more universal narrative that would resonate with audiences, but Maltz doesn't do that here. This film never feels like it gets out of her head. We don't learn much of anything about the main character other than her grandmother died, which, sure, is something to grieve over, especially if she had a large role in raising you, but still, isn't a dramatic conflict on which to hang an entire movie. Much of the dialogue was unscripted, apparently, and it shows. There are a lot of meandering, banal conversations.

Mostly, I just didn't care about this protagonist. We all lose our grandparents. It's something we are primed for and that's part of the natural order. I don't like to use the word boring to describe art, because it's lazy, but sometimes it just fits. This movie and this character were boring.

Grade: B-

Waste of time.

I didn't watch any mystery I didn't watch any romance I didn't watch any story It was a complete waste of time I gave 1/10 because there was no zero Complete waste of time No action nothing to watch Waste of time.

I didn't watch any mystery I didn't watch any romance I didn't watch any story It was a complete waste of time I gave 1/10 because there was no zero Complete waste of time No action nothing to watch Waste of time.

I didn't watch any mystery I didn't watch any romance I didn't watch any story It was a complete waste of time I gave 1/10 because there was no zero Complete waste of time No action nothing to watch.