In the 1860s, fiercely independent French-Canadian Vivienne Le Coudy embarks on a journey with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen, attempting to forge a life together in the dusty town of Elk Flats, Nevada. When Holger decides to go fight for the Union in the burgeoning Civil War, Vivienne must fend for herself, which isn't easy in a town controlled by a corrupt mayor.
Vicky Krieps
Vivienne Le Coudy
Viggo Mortensen
Holger Olsen
Solly McLeod
Weston Jeffries
Garret Dillahunt
Alfred Jeffries
Danny Huston
Rudolph Schiller
W. Earl Brown
Alan Kendall
Shane Graham
Billy Crossley
Rafel Plana
Claudio Garcia
Colin Morgan
Lewis Cartwright
Ray McKinnon
Judge Blagden
Atlas Green
Little Vincent
Alex Breaux
Ed Wilkins
Michael Weaver
Sergeant Webb
Angela Lentz
Sarah
Nadia Litz
Martha Gilkyson
Marc Dennis
Fishmonger Stevens
John Getz
Reverend Simpson
Luke Reilly
Doctor Reilly
Jason Clarke
Fergus McGillicuddy
Arturo Coronado
Railroad Magnate
Eliana Michaud
Little Vivienne Le Coudy
Henry Mortensen
Johnny Chapman
Rodrigo Santacruz
Jury Foreman
Natalie Añorve Toledano
Isabel García
Director, Writer
Viggo Mortensen
March 6, 2024
7
Despite the fact that the plot has plenty of holes, this western just about works. It's all about the determined "Vivienne" (Vicky Krieps), very much a woman in a man's world of pioneering in the 1860s. She encounters the honest and thoughtful "Olsen" (Viggo Mortensen) and travels to his remote, and rather ramshackle, shack where they begin to make an home for themselves. He takes a job as their sheriff and she, a little to his chagrin, starts working in the saloon. He is restless, though, and with the American civil war looming large, he decides that he ought to use his Danish army training and go enlist. She's not enamoured of the idea, but off he goes and that leaves her alone and firmly in the sights of spoilt local "Weston" (the rather un-menacing Solly McLeod). When "Olsen" returns from the war quite a few years later he is presented with a few shocks! Subsequent events take an even more tragic turn, and now he must face his demons and settle accounts. This is a grand looking romantic drama that takes it's time to get going and that allows Krieps to invest strongly in the maturing elements of her character. That he would just saunter off for years and leave her alone and unprotected does beggar belief a bit, and there's no denying that does negatively impact on the plausibility of what, rather obviously, comes next. Still, there is enough meat on the bones of the story, an effectively sparing amount of dialogue and a soupçon of chemistry between the two at the top of the cast that gives some indication of just how tough and lawless life was and at how difficult it was to be decent!