Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby are lovers on the American frontier in Mona Fastvold’s ravishing period romance “The World to Come” The love story, co-starring Casey Affleck and Christopher Abbott, makes its stateside premiere virtually at the Sundance Film Festival before opening from Bleecker Street Films in available theaters on February 12.
Set during the 19th-century somewhere along the east coast of the United States, “The World to Come” follows the acting foursome as they battle the elements and isolation. Waterston, who also provides a literary voiceover in the form of epistolary diary entries, plays Abigail, grieving from a recent loss while eking out a pastoral life with her husband, Dyer (Affleck). She’s thrown for an emotional tailspin when she meets Tallie (Kirby), with whom she sparks an instant attraction, leading to a stolen romance that’s complicated by Tallie’s possessive husband, Finney (Abbott).