Gavin O’Connor directs Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton and Ewan McGregor in this western about a woman in the desert who asks her ex to protect her wounded husband as a group of outlaws close in on her homestead.

A rare Western told from a female perspective and closer to the harsh realities a frontier venturing woman might have been threatened with than what your Barbara Stanwyck or Joan Crawford ever encountered. It is a bit too po-faced to gain any lasting pleasures from, a bit too obsessed with its flashbacks to create a captivating main narrative. The potential is there in cast, set up and intention just never capitalised on.

4