Director: Max Walker-Silverman
Writer: Max Walker-Silverman
Stars: Josh O’Connor, Lily LaTorre, Meghann Fahy
Synopsis: After wildfires take his ranch, a cowboy named Dusty winds up in a FEMA camp, finding community with others who lost homes, including his daughter and ex-wife.
The West has always held a mythic place in our culture. There are wide open spaces with farms, trails, and quiet stoicism. The West, though, is being burned at an alarming rate. It’s going through a period of dry weather unlike anything on record. The people of the West are, on top of fears of money issues and bad seasons, more aware and more alert that a fire could sweep through and take it all away regardless of anything human looming on the horizon. Rebuilding isn’t about the drama of the fire, but about what happens after it goes out.
Rebuilding is a film that catches you by surprise in its universality. For a lot of us in this situation we would be thinking about getting back to normal. We would be like Dusty (Josh O’Connor) with big dreams about how he’s going to rebuild once he’s back on his feet. Even in our reality when the world had to manage the crisis of COVID-19, many kept repeating what they would do when we got back to normal. Those folks and Dusty have to realize that back to normal is gone and the new normal is what they must get used to.
That’s what works well about Max Walker-Silverman’s script. His drama, as much as it isn’t about the fire, it also isn’t wholly about a person struggling against an unfeeling system. There are scenes of dejection on the part of Dusty about the bank and FEMA woes, but they aren’t his whole conflict. Dusty has to realize how much he needs other people. Walker-Silverman builds the bare bones of attempting to recover from losing almost everything into a story about starting over with a new understanding of one’s self and community.
Dusty is a character who believes and wants for self sufficiency. He strives to go it alone, to be alone. It’s in the quiet moments of recovery we see the people Dusty has only let in sparingly. We see the community he’s had but ignored in order to do as he’s always felt he’s been meant to do. It takes something catastrophic for him to realize how much he’s missed while trying to be everything he’s always wanted to be.
Josh O’Connor plays this very well. He has an open face that shows the weight of the burden Dusty faces without giving away too much of what Dusty holds inside. O’Connor is a calming presence on screen and his Dusty lopes and moves with the speed of a person lost deep in thought. His performance isn’t showy or deeply emotive, but with his physicality and thousand yard stare he gives us all we need to know about Dusty.
What you want from Rebuilding more than anything is the community Dusty finds. Dusty’s journey is mostly of the self, but his driving back and forth and staring off into the distance isn’t always compelling viewing. The trailer park crew is as fascinating as Dusty’s family who he’s become estranged from. Dusty’s a good introduction, but the film suffers when we don’t learn more about the fascinating characters in his orbit and why they’re drawn to this new place.
Rebuilding is a slow and methodical film that will keep your attention and reward you with small beauties if you stick with it. It’s a kind of love poem to a way of life and a sense of place. The performances are good and the scenery shot by director of photography Alfonso Herrera Salcedo is stunning. It’s a film of quiet that speaks volumes about the need for community.
