Overview

When three women living on the edge of the American frontier are driven mad by harsh pioneer life, the task of saving them falls to the pious, independent-minded Mary Bee Cuddy. Transporting the women by covered wagon to Iowa, she soon realizes just how daunting the journey will be, and employs a low-life drifter, George Briggs, to join her. The unlikely pair and the three women head east, where a waiting minister and his wife have offered to take the women in. But the group first must traverse the harsh Nebraska Territories marked by stark beauty, psychological peril and constant threat.

Cast

Hilary Swank

Mary Bee Cuddy

Tommy Lee Jones

George Briggs

Grace Gummer

Arabella Sours

Miranda Otto

Theoline Belknap

Sonja Richter

Gro Svendsen

Tim Blake Nelson

The Freighter

James Spader

Aloysius Duffy

John Lithgow

Reverend Alfred Dowd

Evan Jones

Bob Giffen

Barry Corbin

Buster Shaver

Hailee Steinfeld

Tabitha Hutchinson

Meryl Streep

Altha Carter