‘A Long Winter’ review: A sheltered young man faces a seismic shift in Andrew Haigh’s masterful 1950s Rocky Mountain drama

Dir: Andrew Haigh. Canada/UK. 2026. 119mins

A sheltered young man finally grows up once his mother goes missing in the powerfully atmospheric A Long Winter. Working from Colm Toibin’s short story, writer-director Andrew Haigh again allows his narrative’s intimate specifics to gather an immense cumulative weight, casting Fred Hechinger as the son of unhappy parents living high in Canada’s remote Rocky Mountains in the early 1950s. The fragile truce negotiated by his mother and father quickly shatters, however, leading to a drama of subtle gestures and major emotional undercurrents that touches on everything from masculinity to sexual desire.

Haigh allows his narrative’s intimate specifics to gather an immense cumulative weight

Playing as a Toronto Special Presentation after premiering at Telluride, A Long Winter will next travel to New York and London. Haigh’s strong track record thanks to acclaimed films such as All Of Us Strangers (2024), 45 Years (2016) – both Bafta nominated – and Weekend (2012) will serve him well with arthouse audiences, and his latest also boasts compelling turns from Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Caitriona Balfe. Expect strong reviews for this low-key but deeply affecting picture.

Hechinger plays Mike, who lives with his homemaker mother Louise (Balfe), outdoorsman father Lester (Moss-Bachrach) and younger brother Tommy (Kit Connor). Mike doesn’t like change, but several significant developments unfold quickly, starting with Tommy leaving to serve in the US military in the Korean War — in part because he wants to escape this isolated Colorado community. Then, Mike begins to notice that his mother, who reluctantly agreed to move to the mountains to please Lester, is sneaking alcohol, which alarms her husband. Lester locks Louise in the house, forcing her to quit booze cold turkey, but she secretly escapes, only to go missing in a massive snowstorm that engulfs the region. With the spring thaw long off, Mike and Lester find themselves alone in the house together.

Haigh’s skill at tackling a different genre with each new project continues to impress but ,although A Long Winter’s psychological drama is unique in his filmography, the picture does share slight similarities to his 2017 coming-of-age story Lean On Pete, which was also set in the American West and focused on a young man in search of himself. Hechinger’s babyface looks are ideally suited to portraying Mike, who seems content to remain in an adolescent state residing under his parents’ roof. But the harsh realities of both the outside world and his family will gradually force him out of his stupor.

On its surface, the film is a critique of patriarchy, but it’s a testament to Haigh and his cast that potentially obvious themes are instead explored with rich nuance. Lester proves to be a gently domineering presence — harassing his family members without ever being stereotypically abusive or bullying — and Moss-Bachrach reveals the melancholy within the character’s closed-off stoicism. Lester can explode with rage at others, which the actor delivers with frightening intensity.

When dealing with the timid Mike, however, Lester never needs to resort to violence, simply adding a little gruffness to his voice is enough to silence his son, who weakly offers suggestions of how they might be able to track down Louise. Lester’s general annoyance with Mike — who, we learn, was his mother’s favourite — stems from the young man’s naivete: clearly, by the time the authorities find Louise, she will be dead.

Cinematographer Andre Turpin and production designer Emmanuel Frechette lend this far-flung forested community a sense of ghostly otherworldliness, whereas the family farm is rustic and dimly lit which makes the home feel cosy but also claustrophobic. Certainly, Louise feels constricted, despite her love for her boys. Balfe provides the character with a tight smile meant to bottle up the resentment swelling inside her. She and Moss-Bachrach effectively hint at the years of rancour they have hid from the blissfully unaware Mike and, once Louise vanishes, the actress occasionally reappears as a phantom figure haunting her son, who belatedly realises that her thirst for freedom has been slowly building up in him as well.

With expert restraint, Haigh suggests one of the main reasons why Mike is so docile. Furtive glances at a local cop are, initially, unmomentous, but soon they become a clue to Mike’s closeted sexuality, which Hechinger depicts with aching vulnerability. Afraid to reveal the truth to his homophobic father, Mike will find that asserting himself means also challenging Lester’s blinkered, pessimistic worldview. The young man’s awakening will further be sparked by the arrival of Jimmy (a superb D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), who Lester hires to do the ’women’s work’ around the house now that Louise is gone. As with much of this quietly seismic film, Mike’s inner transformation happens minutely, but it reverberates with unmistakable force.