Ollie (Tessa Thompson) lives in a North Dakota fracking town, where the sudden boom has spelled disaster for all of the non-oil residents. She and her sister Deb have been estranged since their mother’s death. Ollie continues to live in her dead mother’s home as she rides out probation for pill running across the Canadian border, but the house is slipping into foreclosure. Deb (Lily James) prefers to live in a cramped trailer with her son, avoiding her volatile baby daddy (Luke Kirby) as best she can.

Ollie is looking for a job out of town, and hopes to leave as soon as she lands one. She’d like to leave sister Deb set up in the house before she goes, but they owe too much to make it work. They’re barely scraping by as it is. But when Deb discloses her pregnancy, Ollie feels driven to look outside the law once again. She’s got pills hidden in the woods. But does this lifestyle ever let you in, or our, easily?

Little Woods is a modern western, a gritty story of boom and bust, of struggle and self-sufficiency. It’s a slow burn, and the sense of place is dizzying and complete. Writer-director Nia DaCosta draws a thoughtful if bleak family portrait. Tessa Thompson takes that portrait off the wall and gives it life. Not just life: she makes it real, she makes it glow, she makes it necessary. Though DaCosta tends toward the economic, every time a scene lingers for just a beat or two, Thompson uses it, makes it hers, owns the space in a quiet, commanding way. Which is a good representation for the film as a whole. It might have crime and intrigue, but that’s almost incidental to the intimacy in knowing the sisters and the world they inhabit.

One small rant: The sisters cross the border to Canada to access our free health care and reasonably priced prescriptions. Deb makes some shitty passing comment about starting to see why people like Canada. Oh really, Deb? But do you see why people hate Americans? Because our “free” health care is actually paid for by our taxes. We pay for it directly out of our paycheques so that when someone is in need, the services are covered and no one has to worry about affording treatment. So when you come here and steal someone’s health card to get those “free” services, you’re stealing from every Canadian. But we look the other way. We feel sorry for you. But don’t think, for one single second, that Canada is only good for its socialized medicine. We’ve also got you beat in gun control, quality of life, education, space, and natural resources. Plus we have Starbucks and HBO. But yes, by all means, come here to steal from us and somehow look down on us at the same time. It’s the American way. End rant.

Ollie and Deb have ordinary, shabby lives. The kind that don’t always make for compelling viewing. Not exactly the kind of heroes we’re used to. But they have a valid viewpoint,and perhaps a familiar one. Thanks to good writing and terrific acting, their toeing of the poverty line feels heartfelt, genuine, and bold. These women have agency if not resources. The film’s hallmark may be harsh desolation, it is not without its sliver of hope. Definitely worth a watch.

I am one of four sisters, with only 5.5 years, 2 bedrooms, and 1 bathroom between us. Safe to say that we were forcibly very close growing up, andnot just in proximity. We hardly needed friends since we had each other. Of course, we did have friends, and shared friends, and thanks to our mother’s generosity, our house was often overflowing with kids. But when it was just us, it was more than enough. Our dinner table was absolutely raucous with stories and opinions and debate. Bedtime was filled with whispers and toys and smuggled books. During Dr. Quinn we’d be crowded on one sofa, eating out of the same bowl of popcorn. But this ain’t no Louisa May Alcott shit; when we fought, and we did fight, we FOUGHT. Sometimes physically, though we were far more vicious verbally. And then it was a race to get to mom first. Telling on each other is a time-honoured tradition in families with multiple siblings. But one sister had a distinct advantage: she could cry on command. And my mother, smart though she was, was always duped by the tears.

I cry all the time. I’m a super emotional person. I can’t help it – and believe me, if I could, I certainly would. I cry involuntarily all the time. Just the other day we were watching a triggering show, and I could feel Sean’s eyes on me. I snapped at him (sorry babe). I hate this weakness in myself, and resent its predictability, and the fact that I routinely make public displays of myself. As much as I wish I could turn off the waterworks, I still to this day marvel at people who can turn it on. I’ve never had the choice in either direction. Actors, of course, are often called on to do so.

Memory-driven tears are when an actor calls on their own personal sad past memories in order to conjure up tears during a demanding scene. It would be distracting to do this on the spot, so they connect those memories with their lines repeatedly in rehearsal, so they can call on the readily during the all important take. Others may imagine a tragic event that hasn’t actually happened but that would be personally devastating if it did. But what if the usual tricks aren’t working?

Well, you can try the low-tech staring method, in which you close your eyes, give them a rub, and then open them and stare without blinking – 30 seconds without blinking is usually enough to make your eyes water. But if you need major waterworks, you might need something a little more aggressive.

Menthol is an actor’s best friend, and usually found in the makeup artist’s toolkit. A menthol stick looks like chapstick but smells like cough drops; it is swiped under the eyes and acts as an irritant, producing tears. A tear blower works basically the same way: the makeup artist has a glass tube packed with menthol crystals. He or she blows into the tube about 10cm away from the actor’s face, sending a gust of mentholated air toward the eyes, and bingo bango you’ve got tears!! Glycerin occasionally comes in handy too: a drop in the corner of the eye can be blinked down and look convincingly like a real tear.

Sean and I recently saw Dear Evan Hansen, and the dude playing Evan Hansen has to call up tears each and every night, and sometimes twice on Saturdays, if there’s a matinee. I’m certain he wasn’t relying on fake turns because our seats were so good we could tell he wasn’t just crying tears, but snot as well, which is an unfortunate side effect of loads of crying. He cried so much Sean as concerned he might be creating a slip-n-fall hazard for the other actors on stage. Everyone survived, but I did walk away feeling a little sorry for the guy, whose job entails tapping into some major trauma night after night.

Can you cry on demand? Would you want to? Would you use your power for good or evil?