Rating: PG | Runtime: 95 minutes
Release Date: November 14th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Bleecker Street Media
Director(s): Max Walker-Silverman
Writer(s): Max Walker-Silverman

You got what you got.

Writer/director Max Walker-Silverman says it best when describing his latest film, Rebuilding. “This is not a disaster movie. It’s about what happens after.” It’s why the first thing he shows us is the ash in the air. Because it’s not that a fire might hit Dusty’s (Josh O’Connor) home. It’s the inevitability that fire has already arrived. From there it’s the charred remains of a small ranch’s foundation and the barren trees surrounding it. Then Dusty straining to remember what had been for generations, uncertain of where this tragedy takes him next.

We, like this cowboy, assume the title alludes to a return to normalcy. That Dusty will collect insurance money, get a loan, and put his life right back where it was before the flames came over that hill. But that’s not how this works. Because any money that might come won’t arrive any time soon. Government assistance is about providing a temporary respite that is purposefully not constructed to last. And the land is toast where hopes of bringing livestock back in to graze is concerned. So, his best bet is to pack-up and leave Colorado behind.

Enter Callie-Rose (Lily LaTorre), Dusty’s daughter. She hasn’t seen much of her father since he and her mother (Meghann Fahy’s Ruby) split. Not because of any animosity or intent. Life on a ranch by oneself due to an inability to hire help is simply untenably busy. The girl is therefore unsurprisingly distant—assuming this latest visit is a fluke before another lengthy spell apart. But when she realizes it’s the opposite? That Dad’s listlessness means availability? She brightens right up. She looks forward to seeing him and hopes to turn his new trailer into a home.

It’s this vehicle that becomes the linchpin to Walker-Silverman’s narrative. He utilizes what it represents to Dusty (a stop-gap remembrance of what he lost) as a means of showing mankind’s stubbornness to evolve out of that which they’ve only ever known. And he juxtaposes that with what it represents to Callie-Rose (an opportunity for rebirth) as a means of introducing the true object of the title’s action: their relationship. Her innocent question, “Can you still be a cowboy without cows?” actually asks, “Are you a father if you’re never here?”

Born from the filmmaker’s own experience living between his parents’ separate homes when his sister lost hers to fire, Rebuilding feels authentic from the first frame. Walker-Silverman understands these circumstances. He knows the risk of destruction too many can’t escape due to how intrinsically connected their lives are to their livelihood at a moment when the effect of global warming is no longer a question to consider down the road. And he also acknowledges its potential to force a necessary reconsideration of one’s priorities.

Dusty is so caught up in what he thinks he needs that he refuses to see what he has. This trailer? It’s not real. His new neighbors (who also lost everything to the fires) like Mila (Kali Reis) and Art (David Bright)? They’re just strangers. Because he’s going to get back on his feet. His land is still there. He’ll make it better than before, even if it means leaving for Montana to earn the money to do so. He’s blinded by this identity that he projects upon himself as a rancher before his identity as a father. Maybe, if he’s paying attention, he’ll realize he’s wrong.

The evidence with which to get him there is all around him. Mila actually losing something she can never get back. Ruby’s mother (Amy Madigan’s Bess) reminding Dusty that nothing is truly forgotten if you’re willing to remember. A community enduring the same hardships as him while still making the best of it because they’ll do whatever they must to stay together (the scenes outside the library to use its Wi-Fi are both heartbreaking and beautifully poignant). Dusty has been so desperate to survive alone that he’s forgotten he’s not.

Kudos to Walker-Silverman for never falling prey to the impulse to inject romance (either rekindled with Ruby or ignited with Mila) because it would prove counterintuitive to its message about looking inward to move forward. The love on display (besides that connecting Dusty to Callie-Rose) is platonic. It’s empathetic in the face of universal struggle. How do we come together to not only rebuild ourselves, but our humanity away from the constraints of a capitalist system built to discard the exploited majority as another expendable “resource”?

There’s a healthy dose of hope at the back of Rebuilding as a result. That through its never-ending tragedy lies the reality that people, not possessions, make a home. That what you do isn’t as important as who you are. Ruby, Bess, and Mila understand this fact. They might not know what the future holds, but they know what they won’t compromise along the way. That’s what Dusty must discover and O’Connor’s brilliantly understated performance moving from lost soul to renewed purpose shows it’s never too late. Life endures.

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Josh O’Connor and Lily LaTorre in REBUILDING; courtesy Bleecker Street.