80/100

McCabe & Mrs. Miller, right from the chilly opening, is a detached and aching odyssey into ambition and transactions. Never have negotiations and subsequent character shifts looked so gorgeously alive and lived-in. It's a film that is drenched and buried within varied amounts of rain, mud, and snow, and the only shelter lies in the orange hues of saloons and crammed hotels. Before viewing, I read that it was a dismantling of the Western genre, but as always, Altman subverts expectations in profoundly delightful fashion.

It's as if Altman wanted to craft a sorrowful poem for all these settlers and gamblers and prostitutes and gunfighters, and even if it's too late, sometimes it's worth trying anyway. Not an ode to the West, but an ode to the travelers who are trying to find what was promised. Certainly a film that I will appreciate more and more with every rewatch.