Plot Summary: Shot in cinΓ©ma vΓ©ritΓ©-style, this documentary portrays the life of a female dairy cow, called Luma, at Park Farm in Kent, England.
Director: Andrea Arnold
Producer: Kat Mansoor
Cinematography: Magda Kowalczyk
Starring:
Luma as Cow #201699
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⚠️ SPOILER ALERT ⚠️
The Illusion of the "Happy Cow"
About twenty years ago, watching the documentary Earthlings made me turn piscetarian for a little over a year. I fell off the wagon on the day a friend was ordained as a Catholic priest; after an embarrassingly long bus trip packed with old people and a singing priest dropping adult anecdotes, we sat through an excruciatingly boring ceremony with zero food until late afternoon. By 5 pm, completely starving, I caved in front of table after table loaded with delicious meat dishes brought by the priests' families, merrily going around chatting with everyone about what they cooked. That day, the slaughterhouse lost its glass walls for me. My convenient excuse here in Portugal was always, "Our cattle are outside enjoying nature, we don't have the same brutal methods they have in the USA." Well, Andrea Arnold’s Cow shatters that illusion. Just thirty minutes into following cow number 201699 with Arnold’s raw, handheld camera, I woke up from my torpor and went piscetarian again. It’s a wordless, observational film that gave my wife and me space to talk about our own experiences with cattle, like how her grandma kept a cow in Soviet Russia that was crucial for family survival. Following this routine makes the moral evil of speciesism impossible to deny. Argue all you want with ancient traditions, religion, or nutritional excuses; as physicist Albert Einstein wrote in a letter to Hermann Huth on December 27, 1930: "It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind."
Watch the disbudding scene of our cow's daughter in the clip below.
Milking to Pop Radio
Pausing the moral lecture and getting back into the movie. like the aggressive, graphic assault of Earthlings, Cow takes a more observational, sentimental route, giving you space to actually bond with a sentient being. Her entire life is mapped out by human utility: breed, lose the calf, endure the milking machines while pop radio blares in the background, graze outside for a bit, and repeat until spent. Cow is treated purely as a product for human consumption, and when she can no longer produce, you shoot her in the head and squeeze everything out of her. It’s hilarious reading some reviews claiming this medium-sized farm is the worst place on earth or that the cow was shot for no reason. You obviously didn't pay attention to the f***ing gigantic sack of milk that made her unable to even walk straight (a sign that her productive life came to an end), and you clearly haven't watched many industry documentaries. Some were even mad at the farmers who were just doing their jobs without active cruelty. If those critics saw workers abusing animals for fun, CAFOs, or typical slaughterhouses, what would they say? I will leave you a little video below the ratings. Still, most people who took the time to honestly comment had something positive and life-changing to say about their viewing experience. Like me, so many of those viewers must have had their hearts broken in scenes throughout the film, for example, like this one below where she is visibly sad and refuses to eat after her baby has been taken away.
Check out the heartbreaking scene below where she is visibly sad and refuses to eat after her baby has been taken away.
More Critic on the Critics π
Andrea Arnold did a spectacular job. She just laid out what feels like a completely natural narrative with a shaky camera (which can be annoying at times), and everyone takes from it what they want. I didn't find any bias or agenda pushing alternative proteins, diets, or even artificial empathy. The film looks raw, but every single shot is clearly well thought out. I also read another reviewer for Roger Ebert who accuses Arnold of "injecting her own kind of musical score to manipulate the viewer." I call ππ© on that! The radio songs we hear seem to be standard practice on that farm, just part of the natural environment. I might be wrong about that, but even so, I don't remember being "touched" just because music was playing. Even if some moments were edited to look a certain way, like the scene I mentioned before and showed in the clip above, that doesn't change anything. This is a hellish existence, and you put fuel to it every single day. I put fuel to it, but I want to stop, and I want my children to understand this so that perhaps some centuries into the future, (if we don't blow the place to pieces in the meantime), this will no longer be an industry. I obviously recommend this film to everyone and think it should be included in school viewings for 9th graders. It can be a little slow and repetitive, so it's a movie best watched with someone next to you; I wouldn't care much to watch this in a cinema. Before I go, I’d also like to share a very interesting article titled Ancient Arguments for Vegetarianism written by G. Fay Edwards. I had no idea people in ancient times were already debating whether it was acceptable to eat animals.
Watch the abrupt and most "natural" end to the cow in the clip below.
Freddy's Final Rating
81
A wordless, observational punch in the gut that makes the moral evil of speciesism impossible to deny.
π½️ The Humane Slaughter Myth
For those interested in understanding the reality behind modern animal farming and slaughter beyond the idyllic myths:
π¬ You Might Also Enjoy:
Fish Tank (2009)
One of my absolute favorite movies also directed by Andrea Arnold.
The Eagle Huntress (2016)
A visually stunning documentary following a young Kazakh girl forming a deep bond with nature and tradition.
Europe's Lithium Paradox (2025)
An investigative look at environmental extraction and the human contradictions behind green energy.
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