‘Rebuilding’: Josh O’Connor dresses as a cowboy in this beautiful ode to fatherhood and roots

It is comforting to watch a film that champions hope and the possibility of starting anew in the middle of nowhere. The nowhere, in this case, is in a Colorado valley (United States) devastated by flames, where a young cowboy played by British actor Josh O’Connor has lost the ranch he inherited from his family. Without a home or cattle, the young cowboy is an outcast in the midst of an infinite landscape.

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The second feature film written and directed by Max Walker-Silverman, Rebuilding (Reconstruction) is a film sparse in words (like its protagonist) that prefers to sing a hymn to what remains when fire has devoured the entire surface. The bare trees in the close-ups are the smoking remains of a past (that of the West itself) that the viewer evokes as Dusty, the evicted young cowboy, tries to rebuild his life.

Through the impressive landscapes of Colorado, Walker-Silverman tells us about two central themes of his story: roots and fatherhood. Both are buried under the ashes that appear at the beginning of this simple and small film that speaks of life and its sorrows without drama. There are losses, not only material, everywhere, and the sadness is in that downcast and taciturn cowboy, Dusty, brought to life by Josh O’Connor. But in the face of an apocalyptic reality (the film takes place in the present, under the shadow of climate change), the human figure and its bonds, not only of blood, prevail.

Walker-Silverman emphasizes this through the iconography of the West: the solitary man, the hat, and the horse. But he confronts this mythological figure with its nemesis, the man who puts down roots. This dichotomy is in O’Connor’s subtle interpretation, between his cowboy-self and his father-self. At times, this intimate duel recalls that of Ennis Del Mar, the character brought to life by Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, and his relationship with his daughters. Ledger’s complex and tragic portrayal of that man, torn between responsibility towards his daughters and absence, almost inevitably looms over Rebuilding, even though both characters don’t have much in common.

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Perhaps it is the loneliness enclosed in those portable caravans where cowboys like Dusty or Del Mar end up, or because Walker-Silverman had O’Connor in mind ever since he saw his masculine restraint against the green and romantic landscapes of the wonderful God’s Own Country, an English film that bears a resemblance to Brokeback Mountain. The truth is that deep down, Ledger’s brilliant way of internalizing loss, and himself, always emerges; in Ang Lee’s film, he paved a path for an entire generation of great actors, like O’Connor.

Rebuilding is a proposal of plain emotions. It may seem too well-intentioned and simple, but it is worthwhile for its sweet and optimistic way of speaking about resilience from a community of displaced people in the midst of a devastated landscape (or country). Or for how it views the myth of the West from a masculinity, that of the ranchless cowboy, who accepts the possibilities of his new place in the world.