The Keeping Room, a Western directed by Academy Award nominee Daniel Barber, stars Brit Marling, Hailee Steinfeld, and newcomer Muna Otaru as three women striving to escape the lethal vengeance of Yankee soldiers ring-led by a man named Moses (Sam Worthington) at the end of the Civil War. The film’s gripping trailer was just released, and displays a shattering of Western gender norms with its cast of rifle-wielding women.
An early review of the film on IndieWire called it a “feminist Western with bite” and said that “its events may unfold in the past, but the struggles speak to the present with the same canny focus.”
Here’s the official description of the film:
In this radically reimagined American Western set towards the end of the Civil War, Southerner Augusta (Brit Marling, Arbitrage, The East) encounters two renegade, drunken soldiers (Sam Worthington, Avatar & Kyle Soller, BBC’s Poldark) who are on a mission of pillage and violence. After escaping an attempted assault, Augusta races back to the isolated farmhouse that she shares with her sister Louise (Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit, Pitch Perfect 2) and their female slave Mad (newcomer Muna Otaru.) When the pair of soldiers track Augusta down intent on exacting revenge, the trio of women are forced to take up arms to fend off their assailants, finding ways to resourcefully defend their home––and themselves––as the escalating attacks become more unpredictable and relentless.
The Keeping Room‘s screenplay, by Julia Hart, was on the 2012 Black List, and was picked up by Drafthouse last year. It’s out on September 25.
Watch the trailer: