The New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center closed out its first weekend by screening Andrew Haigh’s ‘A Long Winter’ on Sept. 27.
Haigh’s second film on the festival’s Main Slate since 2023, the highly-anticipated drama first premiered at the Telluride Film Festival. It was adapted from a 2006 short story by Colm Tóibín.
“We’re so grateful that we get to be here and show this film,” Haigh said while introducing the film at the screening.
Haigh’s ‘A Long Winter’ is set in the Canadian Rockies of Colorado during the Korean War, a departure from Tóibín’s short story, which takes place in the Catalan Pyrenees of Spain. Jonathan Alberts reunited with Haigh to edit the film — the sixth in their collaborative history — which depicts the mountainous landscape as both beautiful and deadly.
“We’ve worked [together] on films and television shows for 12 years,” Alberts told The Knockturnal on the red carpet. “We’ve become better friends and we have an even shorter hand for communicating and talking about the film. There’s this level of comfort.”
In the Rockies, Mike (Fred Hechinger) searches for his mother Louise (Caitríona Balfe) when she mysteriously disappears into the first blizzard of the season, leaving behind him and his father Lester (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). Before her disappearance, we see Louise struggle with alcoholism and feeling isolated in the mountains, significant points of tension within the family.
Living in a small town also impacts Tommy (Kit Connor), Mike’s brother, who leaves home to serve in the military. In one scene, Tommy tells Mike he has no intention to return to the mountains.
“He just wanted to get out of the world that he was living in,” Connor said. “[Escape] is one of the main themes of this film.”
As the winter rages on, Mike learns to adjust to this new family dynamic and cope with the looming loss of his mother. But Louise’s memory lingers throughout ‘A Long Winter,’ from dream sequences to conversations Mike shares with Jimmy (D’Pharaoh Woon-a-Tai), a boy from town who’s hired to cook and clean for the family.
“I’ve lost a parent, and what you understand is that your life completely changes when that happens,” Balfe said. “But you continue to go on, and life doesn’t stop. You have to find a way to push through, and for Mike and Lester, there’s hope in it because they forge these better relationships with the people around them.”
Despite its heaviness, ‘A Long Winter’ has necessary moments of levity, seen through Mike’s growth and self-acceptance. The grieving process gives way to a better relationship between Mike and Lester, and we also see Mike come to terms with his sexuality as a gay man living in the 1950s. While his grief isn’t linear, the cold eventually has to thaw.
“I lost someone after filming that was very close to me, and it was interesting because a lot of the lessons in the movie really helped,” Hechinger said. “Grief is so multifaceted. There’s freedom in it, and surprisingly, there can be desire and joy and things you wouldn’t expect … There’s great coldness and darkness, [but] you have to keep walking through.”
‘A Long Winter’ is currently screening at Lincoln Center as part of the 64th New York Film Festival. Tickets are available here.
(Feature photo courtesy of Sean DiSerio/Film at Lincoln Center)
