Heartland (1979)

With decades of experience in this genre behind him, Rip Torn is on good form as the hardened Wyoming rancher all too familiar with the travails of making ends meet in this remote wilderness. Here he takes on the role of “Clyde” who employs the newly arrived widow “Elinor” (Conchata Ferrell) as his housekeeper. She has a young daughter in tow (Megan Folsom) and after a while concludes that she’d sooner break out on her own. He, sensibly, advises against that and so they come up with a marital compromise that sees them pull their respective resources. Now he was right, life there is lonely and when the winter sets in it’s dark and bitterly cold. So cold, in fact, that the couple - whose marriage has only ever really been one of convenience - suffer a tragedy of their own that tests their mettle and puts strains on their already tense relationship. It’s a bit more of a documentary this than a drama, offering us a potent glimpse of just how unforgiving nature can be when the temperature drops and the snow falls deep on the solid ground. Their motivation gradually evolves into something more akin to inter-reliance but of necessity rather than choice and the question is: might they ever actually feel love for other? The photography is effectively chilling as are the two efforts who lead what is quite a claustrophobically cast feature that could do with a little more power on the audio even if none of the dialogue is that important anyway. There’s something eminently plausible about this story with characters that I didn’t especially like, nor warm to, but I did very much have to respect.