Starring: Heather Graham, Brielle Robillard, Corin Nemec
Director: Audrey Cummings
Released: 2023
Mood: If you’ve ever fantasized about holding someone obnoxious captive and then mildly tormenting them while giving them false hope and you want to watch a movie kind of like that but not Misery.
In the late ‘90s and early ‘00s Heather Graham was everywhere. I liked some of her movies, was ‘meh’ on others, and kind of forgot she existed by around 2003. I assumed everyone else did, too.
Turns out the world doesn’t revolve around my personal interests, and she’s appeared or starred in multiple movies a year almost every year since. She’s even been in a handful of Westerns, and Place of Bones is what got me thinking about Heather Graham again.
Place of Bones blends psychological suspense, light gore, and character-driven storytelling to tell a surprisingly fresh tale of a mother and daughter surviving in the Old West. It may not be your favourite Heather Graham movie – for me that’s From Hell – but it will probably surprise you.
Place of Bones opens on a hardscrabble farm in 1876. There is NOTHING on this farm except a well-fortified house, a small barn, a mysterious tiny outbuilding that seems to hold sharp objects, and two women.
Pandora (Heather Graham) is the pious, intelligent mother. Hester (Brielle Robillard) is the bored teenage daughter who really wants something to eat.
One day they find a badly wounded man (Corin Nemec) on their property. They drag him to the house, pausing on the way to have a brief conversation that I didn’t notice the first time around, but is a huge clue to later events. Pandora finds a wad of cash in his saddlebags. When he wakes up, he says his name is Calhoun and he admits to robbing a bank and killing his fellow thieves while defending himself.
Pandora quickly realizes that he’s probably being followed, and forces the full story out of him while also amputating his shot-up leg. The people on his trail are extremely ruthless and violent. Calhoun recommends fleeing, but Pandora doesn’t want to give up her land.
Who will win the final showdown? And are they who you think they are?
Heather Graham has appeared in every major movie genre, and she’s a good fit for Westerns with her all-American good looks.
Pandora is written as sharp and quick, and Graham plays her with an unflappable confidence that suits the character. Whether she’s shooting a gun, lopping off a limb, or giving an outlaw a verbal lashing, she’s tough as nails. At times it feels too modern, but that’s also the writing.
Brielle Robillard surprised me as Hester. She flows easily between naivety, sass, physicality, and bravery with a nonchalance that you’ll appreciate even more after the twist is revealed. This is one of her first movies and her largest role, and she holds her own in all of her scenes.
My hands-down favourite performance, though, is Corin Nemec as Calhoun. Even though he spends the entire movie laid up in bed or next to it, he’s like a crusty Western version of the crusty Captain Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean. Snarky, dishonest, yet oddly charming.
I CANNOT BELIEVE that Nemec is the same guy who played Parker Lewis on Parker Lewis Can’t Lose. He’s mostly done TV and TV movies since then – but he’s the soul-patch-sporting douchebag in Toby Keith’s Beer for My Horses music video with Willie Nelson.
The bad guy posse is also all pretty decent in their roles. There’s nobody at the calibre of the best villains in Westerns, but nobody is a booger, either.
Place of Bones is one of the first feature films for Canadian director Audrey Cummings, and she has a GREAT eye. She also knows how to stretch an indie budget.
Some of the lighting in the scenic shots is just astounding. Almost the entire movie takes place on the farm, with just a few shots of nearby woods or panoramic scenery. Paired with a cast as small as the location to maximize screentime and character development, and you’ve got a great use of resources.
I won’t give away the plot twist that happens in the final few minutes and credits, but it’s a doozy. Enough to make you pause with your beer halfway to your mouth and wonder WTF just happened. Enough for me to go back and rewatch the first 30 minutes to look for hints.
Place of Bones is a high-middle movie as far as regular and horror Westerns go. It doesn’t quite succeed at establishing a distinct voice, or land all of its attempts at dry comedy. But the story has good pacing, the super-late twist seems to annoy the hell out of other reviewers, and the female characters are a fun addition to the genre.
