One of the standout scenes in the film Montana Story, first shown at the Toronto International Film Festival and playing in theaters starting May 13, comes right as the story is shifting into its final act. It sees estranged siblings Erin (Haley Lu Richardson) and Cal (Owen Teague), who have returned home to Montana as their father is dying, take a spontaneous detour from putting all the family's affairs in order. They go to what they refer to as “Copperhead,” a fictional mine that is actually the real Golden Sunlight Mine in Jefferson County. It is a massive wound in the Earth of an almost unfathomable depth that takes your breath away just to see it sprawl out before the two small figures. It is beautiful in just how remarkable the view of it is. But it's also terrifying as you imagine how easy it would be for the wind to sweep the siblings into it, swallowing up any hope they would have for their future.
The sight leaves Cal in awe and remarking that it is the “belly of the beast…that our dad helped shield from government oversight.” He says this with a dark chuckle while Erin remains stoic and silent, not participating in the brief laughter. She walks away and later says it reminds her more of Dante’s Circles of Hell, wondering why it hasn’t been filled in. Cal responds by saying that it was “cheaper and easier to leave it alone and keep everyone away.” This is taken a step further by Erin, who calls it “just another crime scene out in the ol’ west” before walking away once more. She then expresses a disillusionment about the “whole Big Sky thing” of “endless horizons” she was told about growing up. Since leaving, she said she now wonders whether “if it's just so big that you lose any sense of perspective at all, so big that you step outside and feel like you’re inside of something.” It is as crushing as it is revealing.
The scene and the film continue on, though the way the characters speak to the tension they feel with the landscapes they used to call home lingers over everything. In case it wasn’t clear, the two siblings aren’t just talking about the settings of the story. Their dialogue is rather explicitly outlining how the outer beauty of the sweeping vistas is in juxtaposition with the ugliness of abuse we discover is happening right inside. The majesty of the natural world is rendered tragic as we discover that Erin attempted to expose how her father was covering up the environmental degradation at the mine. In response, he beat his daughter nearly to death in the home he is now laying dying in. Following a stroke, he has become comatose and is not expected to last much longer. The ticking down of his remaining time is punctuated by the constant beeping of the machines keeping him alive, yet another juxtaposition when compared to the silence of the vast outside world.
It is all part of the way the film contrasts its characters against the massive settings that expand out endlessly around them. It is more than just a backdrop, as it remains both spacious and smothering, a feeling Erin in particular is able to perfectly capture with the wisdom that came from leaving. It makes the struggles of the two young people feel like a blip in the universe. This creates an unexpected sense of freedom in the hope there is something bigger to escape into. There will always be a horizon to go beyond and we see this constantly, instilling the same desire in us to run that the characters are constantly grappling with. This visual language speaks volumes even when the characters don’t, finding emotional metaphors in the rich tapestry of Montana with the wind rushing by with an unending presence.
The topographic and the emotional push against each other, exposing boundless contradictions playing out in these characters’ lives. It is bleak though perpetually honest, digging deeper beyond surface-level assumptions we may have come to believe about the characters' world. It is all about breaking down the misconceptions and finding something more resonant, something the story sets up precisely because of the way the outside visuals clash with the inner emotional turmoil we only get glimpses of. Both are foils for the other, revealing more than either would on their own. It is a tumultuous combination of two conflicting aspects that pull the story and its emotional depth into something more profound. It isn't an easy experience for those living it, though it is a truthful one.
It again is Erin who is most able to articulate this, reflecting on the way everything she had come to believe from growing up there hasn’t come to pass. It all leaves her feeling duped and betrayed by those she thought she could trust. To an outsider who has grown up on stories of the Western, the magic of the open land may seem inviting with all the gorgeous sights to be seen therein. Montana Story calls this narrative into question, complicating the genre and showing how there is trauma to be found here behind all the sunny postcard photos. There is nothing romantic about the film at play here even as we have a built-in association with the imagery as being exactly that. It lays bare how, even in a setting as vibrant and enchanting as this one, the darker aspects boiling right underneath it all are just as present.
As the film settles into a rising and inevitable confrontation, this all threatens to consume them without anyone noticing. Both Erin and Cal have been largely left to fend for themselves, so the possibility that they don’t make it out is a real one. It is something anyone who grows up in a remote world understands and comes to terms with in their own way. As the film finds a cautious tranquility in its conclusion, the internal struggle at the heart of the film is given some resolution. It brings everything into balance, collapsing the juxtaposition in on itself. The internal and external align, ensuring the source of their strife that they have been haunted by for their whole lives is finally put to bed so they can emerge into the world to begin healing.