First Cow (2019)

I probably ought not to have turned on First Cow last night. I was cleaning up in my kitchen while waiting for dinner to arrive—hooray for discovering an unused DoorDash giftcard!—so my attention was anything but rapt. I so worried that my attention was minimal that I outright stopped the film near its midpoint to consider restarting later. This is one of those movies stripped so bare that silent scenes of barely discernible figures in the dark carry real weight; they have to. I wanted to do justice to this film that had received such praise on the podcast I listen to and had to consider a reboot. But I eventually turned the film back on and I’m glad I did because, with twenty minutes, I was so tense and absorbed that I had to remind myself to breathe. 

First Cow sneaks up on you. Its story is simple: two men in the 1820s meet under odd circumstances. Cookie (John Magaro) is traveling with a demanding band of trappers not thrilled with the paltry meals he provides; King-Lu (Orion Lee) has just escaped an angry mob and needs help to evade them. Cookie doesn’t have to help—King-Lu doesn’t even really expect him to—but when he does a friendship is born that leads them into lucrative business together selling sweet biscuits to the residents at the fort. 

This brings a financial windfall that has King-Lu dreaming about them both escaping west to San Francisco, but there is a catch: their recipe only works thanks to the precious milk they steal each night from the area’s first cow. As profits and demand increase, so does the risk to both men. And yet they continue to push forward with increasingly ambitious plans.

If that summary sounds thrilling, I apologize; this isn’t that kind of movie. First Cow is a quiet film of whispered conversations and grounded performances. Yes, there is an extended sequence that had me holding both my breath and my fork in the air, but mostly this is two misfit men growing into rhythm with one another and developing a shared (if possibly misplaced) optimism. There’s nothing showy anywhere: Magaro and Lee have a clear chemistry together but in an unstated way. We see it in their comfort together; we see it as they keep pushing forward despite how precarious every success is. 

In the discussion I listened to about the film, that relationship was at the center. The primary question was: what is the nature of their bond? In a way, I wonder if that question misses the point though: King-Lu and Cookie feel tethered together but not in some expressed way. I called it “companionship” in my notes and that feels apt; I’d buy other interpretations as well. All that matters, though, is that a gentle kindness offered to a stranger blooms into hope for two loners beaten down by a harsh world. Whatever the nature of their connection, the bond is strong enough to get both looking forward rather than at the dirt floor under their feet. 

Helping things along is a plucking, elegiac score that sounds both uplifting g and mournful at the same time. Its character left me with the same impression that childhood stories like My Girl and Bridge to Terabithia carry where we revel in the joys of friendship but can’t hide from those somber notes betraying the golden glow’s mortality. I would submit that the film makes clear how things will end for our protagonists during the first five minutes, but it is a testament to that score, the cast, and the overall direction by Kelly Reichardt that we feel the same misplaced optimism for the characters alongside them. 

I have few bones to pick with First Cow while fully acknowledging that it isn’t for everyone. That stripped down nature from the early going runs the risk of disengaging; in particular for me was the challenge of extended sequences in the dark that I struggled to make out on a television in a lit room. With so little being said (and my hands busy), I struggled to stay focused at the open and really soak in everything the film had to offer. But that’s really it and, in a movie theater, that would not have been an issue. 

Despite my rough start with First Cow, a definite magic appeared during its runtime. I knew where the story would end but still willed it forward. I knew the men’s optimism was tragically misguided but still found myself entirely on board. And I knew that the most special moments were the quiet conversations between two character actors and genuine condolences offered to a cow under cover of night and yet I delighted in them. 

In some ways, it evoked memories of reading Of Mice and Men in the car while picking up my brother from the dorms one weekend. I was just reading along for awhile before suddenly finding myself invested in the central relationship and ending the story in unexpected tears. 

First Cow is a far gentler story with more subdued characters than Steinbeck’s novel presents for sure. But if that experience doesn’t parallel my trajectory through First Cow, nothing else will.