Set in 1856 this slow-burning drama is mostly as bleak as the wild Frontier it is set in.  It opens with a throughly depressed Abigail (Katherine Waterson) reading aloud in voiceover . “This morning, ice in our bedroom for the first time all winter,”  and you really feel the cold as she speaks. She adds “the water froze on the potatoes as soon as they were washed. With little pride, and less hope, we begin the new year“

We  discover the real reason for her melancholy is not the fact that she and her husband are barely eaking  out a living in their desolate farmstead, but the fact that they lost their only daughter to diphtheria.

Abigail barely talks with her mealy-mouthed husband  Dyer (Casey Affleck) but one night when he leans over in bed to offer to make a new baby, she refuses but actually says she would prefer an atlas!  Trapped in a life which seems totally alien to her, she wants to see if there is any real alternative out there.

Things however  are about to change  when newcomer Finney (Christopher Abbott) rents out a log cabin and becomes their nearest neighbor. He’s an unpleasant bully of a man, but nevertheless is married to Tallie (Vanessa Kirby) who sees in Abigail an escape from her own boredom.

The two become fast friends much to the annoyance of both husbands as they start to neglect all their wifely duties around  the house and in the bedroom.  Now the women have each other (literally) they have no need for the men who have been controlling their lives

They may have convinced each other that they could be each other’s destiny, but sadly with the lack any on-screen chemistry we are not of the same mind. 

However its the combination of the annoying  almost whispered monotone voiceover and watching paint dry  speed of the slight plot that influences our judgement on what could otherwise have been an thoroughly  enjoyable experience

Directed by Mona Fastvold
Written by Ron Hansen & Jim Shepard
From Bleecker Street Films