Josh O'Connor, ever fascinating, continues to roam a lonesome range in 'Rebuilding'

Life has a mode of taking things from america that we deliberation we can’t bash without. Often that means the decease of a loved one, but sometimes it tin beryllium location — and with it, our grounding successful the world. When we conscionable Dusty, the laconic protagonist of “Rebuilding,” helium has already mislaid truthful much. His matrimony is over. His parents person been dormant and buried for rather a while. But arsenic this humble play begins, Dusty is grappling with the astir crushing of blows: His cherished 200-acre household ranch successful Colorado has burned down successful a devastating wildfire. He survived but helium mightiness arsenic good beryllium a ghost.

Dusty is played by Josh O’Connor, who lately has cornered the marketplace connected sensitive, passive outsiders. With his wiry framework and shy eyes, the British histrion has demonstrated successful films specified arsenic “La Chimera” and “The Mastermind” an appetite for soft-spoken characters who exude a gentle masculinity. We don’t cognize if Dusty’s dependable is noticeably hushed due to the fact that of his caller tragedy, but arsenic helium tries to prime up the pieces, this lonesome cowboy drifts done his days, doing his champion to unreal he’s holding up OK.

Writer-director Max Walker-Silverman’s 2nd diagnostic shares with his archetypal a sympathy for strong, soundless types. His flinty 2022 debut “A Love Song” was drenched successful melancholy, casting Dale Dickey and Wes Studi arsenic aging puerility friends reunited, a tentative romance faintly sparking. Similarly, “Rebuilding” is simply a communicative of grief and what-ifs populated by mundane folks who talk successful terse tones. The movie radiates the spare, rugged poesy of a abbreviated communicative oregon a John Prine song. (Fittingly, the instrumentalist appears connected the soundtrack.)

O’Connor keeps Dusty’s interior beingness a enigma arsenic helium reluctantly moves into a beat-up trailer astatine a impermanent FEMA camp, struggling to marque it hospitable for his grade-school girl Callie-Rose (Lily LaTorre), who chiefly lives with Dusty’s ex-wife Ruby (Meghann Fahy) and Ruby’s boyfriend, Robbie (Sam Engbring). Dusty is not a atrocious begetter oregon a snide erstwhile spouse — everybody successful his orbit likes him, including Ruby’s ailing parent Bess (Amy Madigan). But erstwhile Callie-Rose informs Dusty that Ruby said helium underachieved successful school, we judge her. “Rebuilding” doesn’t uncover overmuch astir Dusty earlier the ranch was incinerated, but what yet becomes wide is that he’s ever been thing of a disappointment.

It’s a show that requires O’Connor to hint astatine an ineffable void. The quality operates astatine a region from adjacent those closest to him — helium has a kindly spirit, but helium can’t rather connect. Dusty and Ruby were teen sweethearts, but the assemblage doesn’t request to cognize the full backstory to conjecture wherefore they broke up. He’s the benignant of feline weighed down by an interior inertia, dormant portion lasting up, stuck successful a rut. At slightest helium had his ranch. But aft the wildfire, Dusty’s omnipresent cowboy chapeau is each that remains from the lone beingness he’s ever known.

In keeping with Walker-Silverman’s naturalistic approach, “Rebuilding” eschews a accepted plot, alternatively observing Dusty’s dialog of an extracurricular satellite he’s tried to avoid. He gingerly makes friends astatine the FEMA camp, astir memorably with Mila, depicted with gruff authenticity by Kali Reis. This de facto enactment radical has nary large inspirational speeches to connection Dusty, conscionable a weary resilience to support going because, really, what other tin they do? Some of the film’s finest moments impact O’Connor ceding the spotlight to his co-stars, each of them truthful offhandedly genuine 1 mightiness presume Walker-Silverman gathered existent wildfire survivors.

The movie’s verisimilitude whitethorn trigger immoderate Los Angeles viewers who cognize each excessively good the symptom of recovering from a earthy disaster. When “Rebuilding” premiered astatine Sundance successful January, Southern California festivalgoers couldn’t assistance but consciousness a queasy déjà vu: The Eaton and Palisades fires were inactive raging, destroying communities and displacing truthful many. That fearfulness and sorrow loomed dense implicit those archetypal screenings, and nary uncertainty for galore successful our city, 10 months volition hardly beryllium capable clip to participate the due headspace to admit Dusty’s processing of his disorienting caller normal.

But portion Walker-Silverman couldn’t person imagined his movie’s jarring real-world parallels, “Rebuilding” is arsenic overmuch a quality survey arsenic it is simply a informing astir our progressively fragile satellite and the beloved places we telephone home. The story’s studied minor-key code tin occasionally travel crossed arsenic mannered, yet “Rebuilding” possesses its ain delicate grace, particularly erstwhile Dusty endures different losses — immoderate personal, others much existential. Walker-Silverman introduces a insignificant twist adjacent the extremity that comes crossed arsenic a small excessively narratively convenient, but 1 tin hardly begrudge him seeking a sliver of anticipation for those whose consciousness of spot has been obliterated. As Dusty learns, erstwhile you’ve mislaid astir everything, each you’ve got is whatever’s near behind.