Rebuilding review – Josh O’Connor stoically pieces a life back together after wildfire trauma

After losing his property, O’Connor’s rancher finds himself relocated to a trailer park and starts the long road to healing in this subdued, sweet drama

Here is a sweet, sad country song of a movie directed by Max Walker-Silverman; stoic and subdued. Josh O’Connor plays Dusty, a Colorado rancher who has just been hit by a wildfire, losing to the flames property which had been in the family for generations. The movie begins with the stark panorama of charred trees in a scorched and arid landscape; the farmland is still his, but utterly barren for the forthcoming decade, a grim assessment made by a bank official who rejects Dusty’s application for a loan with the land as collateral.

Like many local people in the same situation, Dusty now has to live in a spartan trailer in a government-funded emergency camp, and he takes a mortifying job working on the highway. His crisis has meant a new poignancy in his connection with ex-wife Ruby (Meghann Fahy), 10-year-old daughter Callie-Rose (Lily LaTorre) and his kindly, caring but ailing mother-in-law Bess, played by Amy Madigan (recently an Oscar-winner for her performance in Weapons). When Dusty collects Callie-Rose for regular visits, she now has to come to his grim trailer and they have to park up by the local library in his pickup to pinch the wifi so Callie-Rose can do homework on her tablet.