Cate Blanchett plays Magdalena “Maggie” Gilkeson, a hardened and somewhat bitter frontier woman running a ranch and doing some doctoring on the side as she raises two young daughters.
Her only help: two hired hands, one of whom (Brake Baldwin) would like to marry her.
As for the daughters … the youngest, Dot, relishes the ranch life, but frets for her mom, who is prone to bad dreams and talking in her sleep.
The oldest, Lilly, is just coming of age. She resents life on the Western frontier and dreams of the day she’ll be able to lead a more civilized life.
One day, a white man turned Indian shows up with an ailment. It’s Maggie’s father, who abandoned the family to “turn Indian” years earlier. He’s clearly not welcome. He’s sent on his way.
Then Maggie’s hired hands and daughters head out to brand some cattle. They never return.
Maggie sets out to find them. One of the hired hands is dead, arrows lodged in his back. Brake has been roasted to death. Dot has been hiding, listening to Brake’s screams, glad that they’ve finally stopped.
Stellar performances by Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchett, a tense plot and more realism than you’ll find in most Westerns certainly put this ahead of most of its 21st century counterparts.