Movie Review: 'First Cow' is Beautiful and Brilliant

A24 is the best film distribution company in the world. I say that in all seriousness because A24 has repeatedly proven over the years that they choose only the best material for their distribution banner. A24 has released my favorite movie the year three times in the last decade. Since 2014, 21 A24 movies have made my 10 Movies of the year. No other company has had this level of consistent quality in history.

First Cow is in that best of the year quality tradition. The drama from director Kelly Reicherdt is just the kind of offbeat, left field offering that lands right in the A24 wheelhouse. At once challenging and simple, First Cow is simply a movie about male intimacy. It’s about two men who share each other's space and company not as a couple, per se, but rather as two men who are bound together by a shared poverty and dreams of an enriching future.

The year is 1820 and as we look up the river, a very odd sight, a man, a raft and a cow. We will come to find out that this is the first cow to arrive in the Pacific Northwest since outposts began to crop up. The Cow belongs to Chief Factor(Toby Jones), the man in charge of the outpost in the farthest reaches of the Pacific northwest. So arrogant is Chief Factor about the security of his new cow, he allows it to graze in the open, in the woods west of the outpost.

That’s where our protagonist, Cookie (John Magaro) comes across it and comes up with an idea. With the aid of his friend and roommate, King Lu (Orion Lee), Cookie will milk the cow in the middle of the night and use the milk to create incredible confections that they can sell to the traders who make their way through the outpost on a regular basis. All goes well, Cookie and King Lu hope to make enough to escape the northwest territory for the fertile land of California and hope to open a hotel.

This, however, is a dangerous plan. The duo will be selling their confection of dough covered in honey and sugar, directly under the nose of Chief Factor. It likely won’t be hard for Chief Factor to determine that with only one cow in the territory, a pastry like this can only really have one source. Nevertheless, Cookie and King Lu press on and hope to go unnoticed by the arrogant Chief of the territory.

And that’s the tension of First Cow. Will Cookie and King Lu make enough money before Chief Factor finds out they are stealing his milk. It’s not a mystery, the opening of First Cow pretty strongly indicates how this plan goes. That said, the heartbreaking and beautiful aspect of First Cow is hoping somehow that through our collective will as an audience, the fates of the lovable Cookie and King Lu might change before the end arrives.

Director Kelly Reicherdt has created a story and characters so lovely and engaging that we almost feel like we can will the movie to end in the way that we want it to. That the ending is inevitable is obvious but it doesn’t change how much we, as audience members, bond with, and come to care about, Cookie and King Lu. John Magaro and Orion Lee create such loveable and indelible portraits of good hearted strivers that we simply cannot resist cheering for them.

I truly adore First Cow, the unique story and compelling characters are so simple and yet, the setting and themes are challenging. A big theme of First Cow is male, platonic intimacy. Cookie and King Lu aren’t exactly conventionally intimate but they are so much in each other’s pocket that even in death, they could not be separated. The kind of male intimacy explored in First Cow is complex, fascinating and vulnerable in a way that not many movies allow male characters to be.

First Cow is one of the best movies of 2020.