She’s the movie’s least familiar face, but Lily Gladstone is the breakout star in this drama about four women in small town Montana.

Loosely based around the true story of a fur trapper-turned-Oregon Trail guide who led a group of settlers on an ill-advised short cut, Kelly Reichardt’s latest is not just the strongest work of her career, but one of the best films you’re likely to see all year, a quiet, meditative masterpiece that examines the cultural and gender norms of the United States in the 19th century within the context of a life-or-death struggle for survival.

Director Kelly Reichardt’s fourth feature, Wendy and Lucy, is a quiet affair. It takes place over the course of a couple of days in a little Oregon town. Its protagonist, Wendy, doesn’t say much, as she spends most of her time alone, and occupies nearly every frame of the movie. And the film lacks a musical score of any sort, apart from a simple little offhand tune that Wendy hums absently to herself (written…