‘Rebuilding’ evaluation: Josh O’Connor performs a cowboy whose ranch burns down

Life has a manner of taking issues from us that we predict we will’t do with out. Typically meaning the loss of life of a liked one, however generally it may be house — and with it, our grounding on the planet. Once we meet Dusty, the laconic protagonist of “Rebuilding,” he has already misplaced a lot. His marriage is over. His dad and mom have been useless and buried for fairly some time. However as this modest drama begins, Dusty is grappling with essentially the most crushing of blows: His cherished 200-acre household ranch in Colorado has burned down in a devastating wildfire. He survived however he may as nicely be a ghost.

Dusty is performed by Josh O’Connor, who these days has cornered the market on delicate, passive outsiders. Along with his wiry body and shy eyes, the British actor has demonstrated in movies comparable to “La Chimera” and “The Mastermind” an urge for food for soft-spoken characters who exude a mild masculinity. We don’t know if Dusty’s voice is noticeably hushed due to his current tragedy, however as he tries to select up the items, this lonesome cowboy drifts via his days, doing his finest to fake he’s holding up OK.

Author-director Max Walker-Silverman’s second function shares together with his first a sympathy for sturdy, silent varieties. His flinty 2022 debut “A Love Music” was drenched in melancholy, casting Dale Dickey and Wes Studi as getting older childhood pals reunited, a tentative romance faintly sparking. Equally, “Rebuilding” is a story of grief and what-ifs populated by on a regular basis of us who converse in terse tones. The film radiates the spare, rugged poetry of a brief story or a John Prine tune. (Fittingly, the musician seems on the soundtrack.)

O’Connor retains Dusty’s internal life a thriller as he reluctantly strikes right into a beat-up trailer at a brief FEMA camp, struggling to make it hospitable for his grade-school daughter Callie-Rose (Lily LaTorre), who primarily lives with Dusty’s ex-wife Ruby (Meghann Fahy) and Ruby’s boyfriend, Robbie (Sam Engbring). Dusty is just not a nasty father or a snide former partner — all people in his orbit likes him, together with Ruby’s ailing mom Bess (Amy Madigan). However when Callie-Rose informs Dusty that Ruby mentioned he underachieved at school, we consider her. “Rebuilding” doesn’t reveal a lot about Dusty earlier than the ranch was incinerated, however what ultimately turns into clear is that he’s all the time been one thing of a disappointment.

It’s a efficiency that requires O’Connor to trace at an ineffable void. The character operates at a take away from even these closest to him — he has a kindly spirit, however he can’t fairly join. Dusty and Ruby had been adolescent sweethearts, however the viewers doesn’t must know the entire backstory to guess why they broke up. He’s the sort of man weighed down by an inner inertia, asleep whereas standing up, caught in a rut. No less than he had his ranch. However after the wildfire, Dusty’s omnipresent cowboy hat is all that is still from the one life he’s ever recognized.

In step with Walker-Silverman’s naturalistic strategy, “Rebuilding” eschews a traditional plot, as an alternative observing Dusty’s negotiation of an out of doors world he’s tried to keep away from. He gingerly makes pals on the FEMA camp, most memorably with Mila, depicted with gruff authenticity by Kali Reis. This de facto assist group has no large inspirational speeches to supply Dusty, only a weary resilience to maintain going as a result of, actually, what else can they do? Among the movie’s most interesting moments contain O’Connor ceding the highlight to his co-stars, every of them so offhandedly real one may assume Walker-Silverman gathered precise wildfire survivors.

The film’s verisimilitude might set off some Los Angeles viewers who know all too nicely the ache of recovering from a pure catastrophe. When “Rebuilding” premiered at Sundance in January, Southern California festivalgoers couldn’t assist however really feel a queasy déjà vu: The Eaton and Palisades fires had been nonetheless raging, destroying communities and displacing so many. That horror and sorrow loomed heavy over these preliminary screenings, and little question for a lot of in our metropolis, 10 months will hardly be sufficient time to enter the correct headspace to understand Dusty’s processing of his disorienting new regular.

However whereas Walker-Silverman couldn’t have imagined his film’s jarring real-world parallels, “Rebuilding” is as a lot a personality research as it’s a warning about our more and more fragile planet and the beloved locations we name house. The story’s studied minor-key tone can often come throughout as mannered, but “Rebuilding” possesses its personal delicate grace, particularly as soon as Dusty endures different losses — some private, others extra existential. Walker-Silverman introduces a minor twist close to the top that comes throughout as somewhat too narratively handy, however one can hardly begrudge him searching for a sliver of hope for these whose sense of place has been obliterated. As Dusty learns, once you’ve misplaced practically every little thing, all you’ve bought is no matter’s left behind.