Michelle Williams seems to be the go to actress for bleak motion pictures at the moment. With Wendy and Lucy and Blue Valentine, Williams proved that she is up for challenging material. For Meek’s Cutoff, Wendy and Lucy director Kelly Reichardt and WIlliams re-team to tell the quasi-western survival story chronicling a portion of the Oregon Trail. Based on the trailer, Meek’s Cutoff looks to be an exercise in a minimalist filmmaking. Utilizing colorful characters and a vast foreboding locations, Reichardt seems to have created a rich and authentic film. Meek’s Cutoff stars Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton, Zoe Kazan, Paul Dano, Shirley Henderson, Neal Huff, Tommy Nelson, Rod Rondeauxn and opens April 8th, 2011. Check out the official synopsis and trailer below.

The year is 1845, the earliest days of the Oregon Trail, and a wagon team of three families has hired the mountain man Stephen Meek to guide them over the Cascade Mountains. Claiming to know a short cut, Meek leads the group on an unmarked path across the high plain desert, only to become lost in the dry rock and sage. Over the coming days, the emigrants must face the scourges of hunger, thirst and their own lack of faith in each other’s instincts for survival. When a Native American wanderer crosses their path, the emigrants are torn between their trust in a guide who has proven himself unreliable and a man who has always been seen as the natural enemy.