For many, it’s difficult to comprehend what it would be like to lose everything. Unfortunately it’s all too vivid for those that have lost their homes to forest fires.

Last year in the US, there were a total of 77,850 wildland fires recorded, seeing roughly a 20% increase on the year before.

With these fires can come devastation, as it does for an average of 3,500 homes each year, which are destroyed by them.

US director Max Walker-Silverman’s film focuses on the fallout of one such a disaster on one such man.

Set in the Colorado desert landscape is a ranch owned by cowboy Dusty (Josh O’Connor) – or it was, until it was wiped out by a forest fire.

The disaster left him homeless, which led to him moving into small trailer in a FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) camp, where a few other survivors also found themselves.

And although he was divorced from his wife Ruby (Meghann Fahy), he still had his daughter Callie Rose (Lily LaTorre) to provide for.

He still had land, but there was little he could with it thanks to the fire, so now had to think about moving forward, with nothing.

This is Walker-Silverman’s follow-up to his outstanding debut, 2022’s A Love Song. And although set in a similar barren landscape, instead of a story about love, this is more of one of finding community.

O’Connor’s Dusty is a measured individual, who virtually never reveals his emotions. The same can be said for the rest of the cast, including the young and talented Latorre; her character follows in her father’s footsteps by not being overly emotional, making her possibly a little too well behaved for the film’s story, although still captivating to watch.

There’s a sense that perhaps the restrained emotions throughout give the film an almost Cinéma vérité vibe, but considering everything they all went through – and lost – you would expected a certain amount a rage from one or two of them at least.

The result is an almost eerie calmness and quiet to their stories, with many just trying to exist with the very little they have, against a picturesque desert landscape throughout.

Still, it doesn’t stop the film from being gently touching and moving in places, as a loner cowboy slowly realises that he doesn’t have to start a new life on his own.