The American dream looks different for everyone, and for some it’s a myth. In a budding capitalist society, a unique and desirable talent is the skeleton key to success. Baking, for example. But games can be rigged before they’re played, and like any true capitalist venture, the one at the center of First Cow (2019) won’t succeed without what is technically referred to as “crime.”
There’s more to First Cow (2019) than pure social commentary, Kelly Reichardt’s tender frontier story about friendship in a verdant but somehow desolate place. On it’s face the film is about a loner named Cookie (John Magaro) and a Chinese immigrant named King-Lu (Orion Lee) who go into business together in the Oregon Territory. Their frontier startup idea: fried biscuits with a drizzle of honey. Their supply chain: a stolen pail of milk from the only cow in the region, owned by a wealthy English landowner (the unmatched Toby Jones). Their strategy: don’t get caught.
Like many Reichardt films, First Cow is deceptively simple. It moves slowly, listens carefully, and pays close attention to human hands and shared glances. The stakes are low, and when you’ve settled into the lovely pace of the film, you realize the stakes are suddenly high. There are no shootouts, no gold rushes, no heroic arcs. Just two men trying to get by, hoping that a little ingenuity and a touch of larceny might be enough to carve out a life in a place that seems to be buzzing with promise.
Reichardt’s work is often defined by what it refuses: sensationalism, sentimentality, and spectacle. Her films—Old Joy (2006), Wendy and Lucy (2008), Meek’s Cutoff (2010), Certain Women (2016) are built out of quiet observation, often focused on people living on the margins of American life. She favors natural light, long takes, and non-movie stars, grounding her stories in a realism that feels lived-in rather than performed. If the western genre is usually about taming the frontier, Reichardt's version is about being weathered by it.
But this is still America, and the dream of upward mobility rests on someone else’s property. Literally: the cow is not theirs. They milk her in secret, under the cover of night, whispering soft apologies as they steal the goods. There is a universe out there where Magaro, maybe most known for his role as the chill white guy in Past Lives (2023), wins the Oscar for his performance here. It’s sensitive, sincere, and sweet. You’re rooting for him the whole way. The milk Cookie and King-Liu symbolizes a quiet act of rebellion, both gentle and transgressive, against a system that hoards resources and guards opportunity.
There’s a melancholy baked into the film’s crust, even as its central friendship warms the heart. Cookie and King-Lu don’t just want to survive, they want to build something. A bakery, a home, a future. But their environment, a muddy, testosterone-fueld dominated trading post full of drunk trappers, hungry capitalists, and brittle egos, offers little in the way of protection. One misstep and the whole enterprise falls apart.
The film opens in the present day, with a woman discovering two skeletons buried side by side in the forest. You can guess who they are, but the mystery isn’t the point. Reichardt’s real concern is the life these two men made together before the world caught up with them. In a country obsessed with progress and profit, she offers a different kind of origin story: one that values friendship, collaboration, and the small, sustaining joys of a warm, oily cake, or the perfect clafoutis.
The West has rarely felt so quiet, or so intimate. There’s no need for a grand mythos here. Just a cow, a griddle, and a chance at a dream.
First Cow
Written by Jon Raymond and Kelly Reichardt; Directed by Kelly Reichardt
2019
122 minutes
English
Recommended way to watch (at time of publication): Available to rent on all major services.
You’ll like this if you like: Old Joy (2006), Dead Man (1995), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)