December 22, 2025 – This quiet, dream-like film about a man searching for the meaning of life in the ordinary course of events is the opposite of a Hollywood blockbuster. The impressive Washington State visuals and earnest narration by Will Patton evoke an experience that reminds me of the old song, “The Three Bells” (1959, recorded by The Browns).

The movie is about the life of Robert Grainier (played by Joel Edgerton of “The Boys in the Boat”) a logger haunted by the murder of an Chinese man who was a co-worker with him on a railroad construction job during World War I. The sound of steam engines and other kinds of trains follows him for the rest of his life. He often sees the man who was killed by bigots just for being different.

One of his best friends is Arn (William H. Macy of “The Lincoln Lawyer”) an old powder monkey (a man who blasts stumps and other logging obstacles) who is wiser than most. One night Robert asks him, “do you think that the bad things that we do follow us through life?”

Arn replies “I don't know. I've seen bad men raised up and good men brought to their knees. I reckon if I could figure it out, I'd be sleeping next to someone a lot better-looking than you.” One night around a campfire, Arn tells the other loggers, “This world is intricately stitched together, boys. Every thread we pull, we know not how it affects the design of things. We're but children on this earth, pulling bolts out of the Ferris wheel, thinking ourselves to be gods.”

This is one of those movies that depicts a happy married life in such a way that you know something awful is going to happen. Robert meets a lovely woman, and the two of them settle down and start raising a child. Robert had premonitions about this for years. He had a dread “that some punishment was seeking him.”

After meeting up with another old friend who was suffering from dementia, Robert abruptly quit the logging business and took on other jobs, eventually hauling freight in a horse-drawn wagon. He would live on into the modern era of space flight. Just when he started to make sense of it all, his life came to an end. Before the end, however, he finally felt connected to the world after a transcendent new experience.

Or maybe the end came earlier. This movie can be interpreted in other ways. Robert did get very ill earlier in the movie, perhaps the Spanish Flu. How much of the rest of his story was just a fever dream. Robert slipped through life without much notice. Once his wife and child were gone, he became rudderless, drifting through the dream of life. This film is like a quiet meditative dream with some fine cinematography by Adolpho Veloso and a fitting song by Nick Cave. It rates a B+.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in digital formats, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff (no extra charges apply). I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2025 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Robert Roten can be reached via e-mail at