A modern Western about two sisters who work outside the law to better their lives

Ollie (Tessa Thompson) lives in the small town of Little Woods, North Dakota doing odd jobs and counting out the last days of her parole. People of the town know her as a drug dealer and still come to her, but she turns them away. She’s not doing that anymore.

After her mother dies and her sister Deb (Lily James) falls pregnant, Ollie has a sudden need of lots of money — more than she can easily make selling coffee at worksites and doing laundry for construction workers. She was trying to get away and start a new life, but now she’s drawn back in.

Little Woods is not horror, and despite the summary, it’s not a ham-handed Aesop about the evils of drugs or abortions. If anything it’s poverty porn, a story of a sister willing to do anything to help her family in a world that seems determined to wear her down. As a horror fan (and because I didn’t read anything about the film before watching it), I kept rooting for darkness: “All right, as they’re crossing the woods into Canada to use a fake ID to get an abortion in a Winnipeg clinic, surely they’ll meet a Wendigo, or some werewolves, or at least a cultish clan of inbred lumberjacks? Please?” I was to be disappointed.

All that said, it is a good film. It is well acted and visually beautiful in its own dingy gray, austere way. The characters are easy to care about, and the erosion of good intentions by a town and a world that don’t care is palpable, and it hurts. But there’s no one to hate (well, almost no one, the fake ID guys are pretty terrible), because everyone is human, and just doing the best they can in a broken system.

Nia DaCosta is a writer-director to watch out for, especially if you’re thinking your viewing could use a few more Women of Color.