‘The Unknown Country’ Review: Lily Gladstone Hits the Road in a Loving, Wistful Tour of Heartland America
variety.comGuy Lodge Film Critic There is no unknown country in “The Unknown Country,” a gently meandering road trip through an America that even those of us directly unacquainted have traveled via the movies: Morrisa Maltz’s lovely second feature trades in the familiar imagery of unfettered highways ribboned through the great, grassy middle of nowhere, roadside inns outlined in humming hot-pink neon, gas stations slumped against the sparse landscape like oily oases.
It’s the people building their lives along this route, however, that this sociable, inquisitive docufiction seeks to discover, as Maltz profiles the faces flashing by the driver only passing through.
A diner hostess, a convenience store clerk, a motel proprietor — here, all get to share their stories beyond the usual scope of road-movie bit parts.
Indeed, for much of the film’s compact running time, we learn more about these foregrounded background figures — playing themselves with generous candor and good humor — than we do about its ostensible protagonist Tana, played with typically watchful intelligence by Lily Gladstone, the marvelous star of Kelly Reichardt’s “Certain Women” and Martin Scorsese’s upcoming “Killers of the Flower Moon.” A Minneapolis resident, she’s prompted by her grandmother’s death to explore her Native American heritage along a winding asphalt trail down to Texas.
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