Lily Gladtsone (IFC Films)

Characters take a lot of long drives in director Kelly Reichardt’s drama Certain Women. In fact, the film’s most powerful moment may be the sight of Jamie (Lily Gladstone) getting behind the wheel for what we know will be a four-hour drive. The quiet strength of this movie, and Gladstone’s breakout performance, is such that I’d happily watch a version that follows Jamie’s entire journey home.

Based on the short stories of Maile Meloy, the movie is set in small-town Montana, where three discrete but subtly intertwined segments introduce us to four women who live and work in the vast state. Laura (Laura Dern) is a personal injury lawyer who has trouble convincing Fuller (Mad Men‘s Jared Harris) that he can’t win his worker’s comp case. Gina (Michelle Williams) and Ryan (James LeGros) want to build a second home, and try to get cheap sandstone from their elderly friend Albert (Rene Auberjonois). In the movie’s longest and most effective section, Beth (Kristen Stewart) has to drive four hours to her job teaching an adult education class, where she’s befriended by Jamie (Gladstone), a rancher in the area.

While the movie takes its time to unfold, one of its first images makes its characters’ alienation and loneliness clear. We see a man and a woman getting dressed after a mid-day tryst, but they’re framed by doorways separated by a blank wall. They’re not the only ones who have trouble connecting; Gina constantly butts heads with her teenage daughter Guthrie (Sara Rodier), and Jamie, who may have a crush on her teacher, can’t quite reach Beth.

Stewart can seem lost and awkward on screen, which perfectly suits Beth. When Jamie first runs into her at a diner (the only place to eat out in town), Beth reveals a strange habit: with a napkin still wrapped around the diner’s silverware, she wipes her mouth with the entire package of cutlery. This is a woman who’s so afraid to open up that she can’t even commit to opening up her napkin.

Dern and Williams (a Reichardt regular from Wendy and Lucy and Meek’s Cutoff) are fine, but the movie belongs to its least familiar face. The world of emotions that play across Gladstone as Jamie starts the long drive home is heartbreaking. Certain Women beautifully expresses the loneliness of America’s wide-open spaces, and its lost characters speak quiet multitudes.

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Certain Women
Written and directed by Kelly Reichardt.
With Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart, Lily Gladstone, James LeGros
Rated R for brief nudity and strong language.
107 minutes
Opens today at Landmark E Street Cinema and Landmark Bethesda Row