There are certain actors who seem to have grown up before the public’s eye. Whose very existence serve to remind us of our own mortality. It’s fitting then that a movie about the relentlessness of time and the horror of aging would star Winona Ryder, who we’ve seen from her breakout teen years age through every phase Hollywood allows women. Co-written and directed by Eli Horowitz (“Homecoming”), the romantic horror, “The Cow,” stars Ryder as Kath, an older woman thrown for a loop when her younger boyfriend suddenly leaves her seemingly for a younger woman.
Ryder is fantastic, in her first film role since 2018’s “Destination Wedding,” bringing her trademark wry humor, expressive eyes, and fiery energy to Kath. Slightly older now, Kath prefers to spend time with her plants and a good book over getting blasted at raves. This desire for a quieter life causes tension with her younger boyfriend, Max (John Gallagher Jr.). Reluctantly she agrees to a weekend away at an isolated cabin in the woods hours outside Oakland where they live.
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When they arrive another, an even younger couple is already there claiming they’ve rented the cabin. Deciding to share the cabin for the night, Kath and Max play a vintage erotic board game with the couple. What starts out as harmless fun escalates when Greta (Brianne Tju, “I Know What You Did Last Summer”) begins heavily flirting with Max, much to the consternation of her boyfriend, Al (Owen Teague, “It”). The next morning Al tells Kath that Greta and Max have run off together. Kath’s worst fears and insecurities are now a reality.
Determined to find out what happened with Max and Greta, Kath contacts the cabin’s owner, Nick (a very charming Dermot Mulroney). Sparks fly as the duo starts to unravel the mystery. In a callback to “Reality Bites,” they share big gulp sodas, discussing their thoughts on mortality and dating. The veteran actors have an easy chemistry together, pulling the audience to root for Kath to get over Max and make a go at it with Nick instead. But just when the filmmakers have lulled you into thinking you’re watching one kind of film, a non-linear narrative takes over. As Kath tracks down Greta to discover what happened to Max, missing information is revealed to the audience through flashbacks ramping up the tension. While the puzzle-like structure is interesting, the constant cutting back and forth does become a bit tiring after a while.
Regardless of the structural issues, the film is anchored by the strong performances of the cast. Ryder proves, once again, her star power has yet to wane, elevating the material simply with her beguiling presence. Consistently affable character actor in a leading man’s body, Mulroney turns on the same charm he had in the rom-coms of yore like “My Best Friend’s Wedding” or “The Wedding Date,” but underneath his aloofness, he leaves room for doubt.
In contrast to Ryder’s and Mulroney’s laidback energy, Tju and Teague’s mysterious couple have the squirrely energy of young people desperate to seem unbothered. For most of his screen time Teague’s Al remains eerily quiet, communicating mostly through glances and shrugs. The best thing in last year’s ill-conceived “I Know What You Did Last Summer” reboot, Tju is a star in the making. She has a dominating presence, her Greta is a magnetic vacuum who sucks up everyone’s energy to feed her own. Both actors are underserved by the film’s overly complicated non-linear structure but still manage to leave lasting impressions.
Underscoring the film’s themes around aging, the main cast straddles four generations with Mulroney on the cusp between Boomer and Gen X, Ryder a Gen X icon, Gallagher Jr. an elder millennial, and both Tju and Teague firmly Gen Z. That all of these characters are haunted by the specter of aging and the inevitability of death serves as a stark commentary on our society’s obsession with treating time like a disease, aging like something to be cured. This metaphor is at times a bit on the nose, but by teasing out this shared human fear Horowitz and co-writer Matthew Derby keep the horror rooted in reality, even when the plot mechanics veer towards the unreal.
First-time director Horowitz wisely limits the action to only a few locations, including his own secluded cabin amongst the redwoods. The forest is shot gorgeously by cinematographer David Bolen, who gives the natural mist an otherworldly quality. Rather than lean towards darkness, dappled sunlight surrounds the action during the climax, showing that horror is always all around us.
The blended tones and mixing of rom-com tropes with wry humor and mystery mostly work well until the film makes a hard pivot to biotech horror. By the last act the script begins to resemble “The X-Files,” however the same implausibility that made that show a hoot, here unfortunately undermines the spell the film had successfully cast. Despite its rough edges, “The Cow” is buoyed by several strong performances at its center and a very welcome return from star Winona Ryder. [B]
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