Joel Edgerton (very good in those two Jeff Nichols movies a decade ago) hits new heights here as a capable logger, quiet and gentle, who finds love (Felicity Jones of Taymor’s Tempest) and loses his family to a wildfire. This is an ambitious movie that tries to poetically represent our country, society, and history by following one man with hardly any friends, and somehow it succeeds. Met an old friend of the director’s at the screening, didn’t yell at him but was thinking “your buddy made this movie AND cowrote its theme song with Nick Cave?!” I must read more Denis Johnson. However, people who know the book are very upset about this movie online – some writers I respect think it’s a bad adaptation, and some are defending the changes it makes. Brian Tallerico for Roger Ebert.