A Gentle Thaw: Haigh’s Measured Drama is Glacial but Rewarding
A distinctly snowy spin on a coming-of-age yarn, Andrew Haigh’s A Long Winter uses a far more introspective and quiet style to offer a path towards the future for its young protagonist. While not packing the same ambitious punch as 2023’s All of Us Strangers the film offers a reverse examination of a tricky family situation than his previous effort leading to an adolescent blossoming amongst the desolation instead of a retrospective look back.
High in the sparsely populated Colorado mountains Mike (Fred Hechinger) lives a quiet existence with his family, everything at a seeming equilibrium that he’s trying hard not to disrupt. His father Lester (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) makes a humble living breeding rabbits for meat and fur and the family mainly survives on the produce of their other livestock. Mike’s brother and best friend Tommy (Kit Connor) is about to head off to serve in the Korean war and his mother has a secret, but not so secret drinking problem after she bemoans Lester’s decision to move them to the middle of nowhere. Mike doesn’t want change. He triple washes out cups that stink of the harsh wine his mother drinks to avoid Lester knowing and he has regular gay pinnings that he’d rather suppress than face. But after his mother heads out into the heavy winter snow one morning and never returns, he clings onto hope and searches for her every single day. This unleashes a new, complex lease of life that may have actually been shackled down by her erratic presence in the first place.
It is stating the obvious to say that A Long Winter is shot absolutely beautifully by André Turpin and Haigh makes sure to give us plenty of sweeping, white as white shots of the regional Canadian wilderness intended to mimic the Colorado Rockies. Most of the film is incredibly static, Haigh wanting us to take pause and assess what this answerless search is doing to the central father and son pair. If nothing else the film looks like a painting, with the type of landscape that’s hard to believe even exists.
Fred Hechinger has never been better and it is both heartbreaking and life affirming to watch Mike grow from a timid and non-autonomous young boy to someone on the verge of adulthood, ready to stand up for himself and to his disillusioned father. Moss-Bachrach is also excellent as the loving, yet slightly domineering Lester, a man trying to make a living who can be a bit of a tough nut but someone who was only trying their best and might have messed up along the way. Before she vanishes, Caitríona Balfe puts in a heartbreaking performance as Louise who offers short bursts of light amidst the deep sadness that reveal what this family was or could’ve been if a few different life decisions went a few different ways.
It is that ultimate feeling of coming into yourself that leaves room for optimism in Haigh and joint screenwriter Colm Tóibín’s script which can sometimes feel too slow and ponderous for its own good. A sub plot involving Jimmy (D’pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) a young Native American man moving in to help with the housework evolves the rumbling queer feelings felt by Mike but comes a little late to have the impact it perhaps intends. Based on the Irish writer’s original short story Tóbin’s novels are systematically emotionally restrained and quiet much like Haigh’s work in 45 Years or Weekend. It is this marriage of filmmaker and writer that ultimately does work but much like the harsh reality of the thick, treacherous snow, there’s only so far you can trudge before you hit a rough patch and have to turn back.
While A Long Winter doesn’t reach the heights of Haigh’s previous work, there is an overwhelming soft and relaxing edge to the hard questions that offers a redemptive and satisfying character study that warms the cockles and thaws the heart.
Reviewed on October 15th at the 2026 London BFI Film Festival (70th edition) Galas programme. 120 Minutes.
★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆
