There's a sensation I feel when listening to some ambient music, something I assume many people feel, of being lulled, of being calmed, of being weightless. That's what this film, with its long, quiet spaces; wide open landscapes; and intricate details does. It suffuses you with peace, even in its most awkward moments, even with the threat of violence in the air, even amidst heartbreak or decay. It reminded me so strongly of the sensation I felt reading Casey Plett's "Not Bleak." In the face of the bitter cold (you can feel it just by watching--something about all those coats), it seems easy to slip into feeling removed from this film, but the mixture of performance (no weak performance graces…

87/100

Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women aches with the wind of a thousand lives lost to the blistering cold. Its cast may be individualistic, but their mingling relationships are already doomed, stamped to the far outstretches of fate. The winding landscapes of small-town Montana feel disconnected from America's progress into modernity, evident by scenes constructed out of alienating office cubicles, restaurants, and school parking lots. These people are so lonely, so uncertain in spite of their chosen particularity that the film's expansion of time - trains roaming as transport, horses strolling across a winter night - captures impeccable nuance in their unspoken desires and frustrations. They're surrounded by advances in culture and technology, but their tired eyes and haunted gestures seem…