The Reel Review
Tragedy brings a New York City socialite and her family to the Madison River in Montana, where they must cope with loss, grief and permanent changes to their lives. Michelle Pfeiffer, Kurt Russell and Beau Garrett star in this neo-Western drama series from creator Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone, Hell or High Water).
Pfeiffer is magnificent as the family matriarch who ruefully discovers she missed out on much of her husband’s life after finding a 20-year journal he kept during his annual visits with his brother in Montana. Despite a few predictable moments and some corny dialogue, her performance dovetails into a solid screenplay and gorgeous Montana vistas. Russell appears in flashbacks of their prior life together and when Pfeiffer’s Stacy reads his journal.
Other acting standouts in the series are Beau Garrett (Firefly Lane, The Good Doctor) as Stacy’s oldest daughter, the divorced mother of two girls, and Rebecca Spence (American Schemers, 61st Street) as Stacy’s observant, always-present socialite best friend, Liliana. Despite a disappointingly weak sixth and final episode the story does provide a nice set-up to Season 2.
REEL FACTS
• Kurt Russell filmed all of his scenes for Seasons 1 and 2 of The Madison during the filming of Season 2, due to conflicts with filming Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
• Pfeiffer and Russell last appeared onscreen together in the 1986 romantic crime drama Tequila Sunrise.
• Famous for its trout fishing, the Madison River flows north from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming to Three Forks, Montana, where it meets with the Jefferson and Gallatin rivers to form the Missouri River.
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