{"id":884136,"date":"2026-09-05T09:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T09:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/884136\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T09:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T09:48:09","slug":"a-long-winter-review-fred-hechinger-in-tender-andrew-haigh-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/884136\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A Long Winter’ Review: Fred Hechinger in Tender Andrew Haigh Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe many ways in which writer-director Andrew Haigh<\/a> and fiction author\u00a0Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn\u00a0share a kinship of sensibilities, notably in their impeccable gifts for intimate character observation, breathe warming embers into the sub-zero elemental severity of\u00a0A Long Winter<\/a>. A coming-of-age drama that touches delicately on grief and resilience, family and home, queer sexuality and liberating self-discovery, the film\u2019s muted tone will be considered under-powered by some. But audiences willing to tune in to its slow-burn introspection and immersive sense of place will find a humanity that is its own reward, particularly in the probing performances of\u00a0Fred Hechinger<\/a>, Ebon Moss-Bachrach<\/a> and\u00a0D\u2019Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tJust as Haigh transposed the Japanese source novel from Tokyo to London in his 2023 stunner,\u00a0All of Us Strangers<\/a>, his adaptation of\u00a0T\u00f3ib\u00edn\u2019s novella \u2014 first published in the Irish author\u2019s haunting 2006 short story collection\u00a0Mothers and Sons\u00a0before being issued as a standalone volume last year \u2014 relocates from the Spanish Pyrenees to Colorado\u2019s Rocky Mountains. That landscape, magnificent but forbidding as fall lapses into the protracted, snowbound season that gives the film its title, helps make the material Haigh\u2019s own, like a lost literary nugget of 1950s Americana.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tA Long Winter\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tRestrained but deeply felt.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: Telluride Film Festival
Cast: Fred Hechinger, Ebon Moss-Bachrach,\u00a0Caitr\u00edona Balfe, Kit Connor, D\u2019Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, David Furr, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Freeman, Geoff Gustafson, Anthony Timpano
Director-screenwriter: Andrew Haigh, based on the novella by\u00a0Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 59 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe central character and the eyes and ears of the story is Mike (Hechinger), who took a test run at life on a farm two state lines away from his family\u2019s cabin high in the mountains but was soon pulled back by homesickness. Mike is resistant to change, but for his younger brother Tommy (Kit Connor<\/a>), it can\u2019t come quickly enough. Impatient to see more of the world, he has enlisted in the Army and soon ships out to Korea, leaving the other bed empty in the room the brothers had shared since childhood.<\/p>\n

\n\tChange turns out to be beyond Mike\u2019s control when he realizes that his depressed mother, Louise (Caitr\u00edona Balfe), is drinking heavily, increasingly chafing at the life of isolation her husband Lester (Moss-Bachrach) has chosen for them. Desperate for a connection to a more sophisticated world and its people, Louise entrusts Mikey to slip copies of\u00a0Cosmopolitan\u00a0among the provisions they pick up on trips to the fading foothills township. She knows Lester would disapprove of her spending what little money they have on frivolous pleasures.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Lester, whose father and grandfather both drank themselves to death, starts smelling booze on Louise\u2019s breath again, he enrages her by tipping her secret stash of gut-rot wine down the sink. Unsettled to see his mother suffering, Mike urges his dad to give her what she needs, but Lester insists on her going cold-turkey, causing her to howl in anguish. While Lester and Mikey are out fixing the barn door before the season\u2019s first big storm, Louise vanishes, taking her winter coat and boots with her.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the snow closes in and the phone lines and power go down, local residents and state troopers form a search party, trudging as far as they can go each day on the surrounding mountain range. Louise\u2019s brother Jack (Martin Freeman<\/a>), who lives on the other side of the mountain, has heard nothing from his sister. Family friend Joe (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), who has started talking to prickly Lester again after a period of chilly silence, tells Mikey to look out for vultures circling overhead, usually a sure sign of a body in the snow.<\/p>\n

\n\tHaigh expertly balances the tone as dread turns to lacerating sorrow. But even as Mike faces the void of his mother\u2019s absence in uncomfortable isolation with his disgruntled dad, his eyes can\u2019t help locking with those of a young cop (Anthony Timpano) involved in the search, in what is instantly recognizable as unspoken sexual tension.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile queer characters and themes run through the work of both Haigh and\u00a0T\u00f3ib\u00edn,\u00a0A Long Winter never takes the expected turns, although Mikey does have homoerotic fantasies about the cop in Tommy\u2019s bed. Gay yearning is embedded in who he is, played with a touching cherubic innocence alongside a more adult longing by the reliably excellent Hechinger.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Mike insists on going out alone to continue the search each day, long after his dad has abandoned hope, the rigidly patriarchal Lester grumbles about there being no one to tend to the cooking and housework. When he hires mixed-race orphan Jimmy (Woon-A-Tai, one of the revelations of\u00a0Reservation Dogs<\/a>) as a live-in domestic to handle those responsibilities, Mikey\u2019s desire shifts focus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhether or not it\u2019s reciprocated is kept ambiguous by both Haigh and\u00a0Woon-A-Tai. But after intially treating Jimmy dismissively and resenting the stranger\u2019s presence in Tommy\u2019s bed, Mike comes to his defense when Lester obnoxiously mocks the housekeeper one night for doing women\u2019s work. While Jimmy can stand up for himself, the gesture of solidarity sparks a thaw between him and Mike. They start going out together each day to search, walking farther afield each time and pissing off Lester.<\/p>\n

\n\tMikey\u2019s gayness is very much a part of the character\u2019s DNA, but it\u2019s not the dominant thread of Haigh\u2019s film. The writer-director is more attentive to the tectonic shifts in a family when the balance is upset, and the way that crushing loss can sometimes be a path to personal growth. Through his friendship with the quiet, soulful Jimmy, who has led a tough life, Mike gains the confidence to assert his place in the household, to deepen his sense of belonging in their lonely corner of the world, and to speak blunt truths to his father.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe remote cabin he built was always Lester\u2019s dream, never Louise\u2019s. Even when Mike gains a deeper understanding of his mother and learns the reason that his father and their neighbor down the road, Ben (David Furr), detest each other, it appears that he will continue to hold his dad accountable.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs always with Haigh, the entire ensemble is strong, led by Hechinger with raw pain, burgeoning maturity and innate sweetness. Moss-Bachrach deftly finds the softer sides of Lester, even at his most unreasonable, indicating that world-weary sadness eats away at him even if he has trouble showing it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tConnor is appealing in the smallest role; Balfe leaves an indelible mark, giving Louise an addict\u2019s cunning but also the gnawing frustration of a woman stuck in a life she didn\u2019t want; and Woon-A-Tai brings a restorative calm \u2014 never at risk of becoming a noble old-school Sundance clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film looks beautiful, its enveloping crystalline images gracefully shot on 35mm by DP\u00a0Andr\u00e9 Turpin\u00a0on location in the Canadian Rockies (cheaper than Colorado). Production designer Emmanuel Fr\u00e9chette\u2019s rustic, built-from-scratch cabin, complete with interiors and windows looking out onto the vast expanse of unforgiving nature, gives the movie a fully lived-in feel. And erstwhile Tangerine Dream member Paul Haslinger\u2019s pensive score echoes the gentle rhythms of\u00a0Jonathan Alberts\u2019 editing.<\/p>\n

\n\tA Long Winter\u00a0is not an emotional stealth bomb like\u00a0All of Us Strangers\u00a0or even Haigh\u2019s 2011 breakthrough\u00a0Weekend<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 it\u2019s arguably closest in spirit to another of the Brit director\u2019s American-set dramas, the under-appreciated but lovely\u00a0Lean on Pete<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 but the new film\u2019s subdued intensity and aching sensitivity make it lingeringly affecting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The many ways in which writer-director Andrew Haigh and fiction author\u00a0Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn\u00a0share a kinship of sensibilities, notably in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[306654,296779,49,12574,48,306724,13489,75,59560,229464,306725,263006,60913,306726,54157],"class_list":["post-884136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-a-long-winter","tag-andrew-haigh","tag-ca","tag-caitriona-balfe","tag-canada","tag-du2019pharaoh-woon-a-tai","tag-ebon-moss-bachrach","tag-entertainment","tag-fred-hechinger","tag-kit-connor","tag-lgbtq-stories","tag-martin-freeman","tag-telluride","tag-telluride-2026","tag-telluride-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}