[2] The film was based on the debut novel Winter in the Blood (1974) by noted author James Welch, who was a leader of the Native American renaissance in literature.

Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times said the film is concerned with memory and regret and it "feels boldly unburdened by many of the rules of structure and conventional storytelling.

"[3] It has moments that are "unexpectedly arresting and little jabs of poetic meaning or hard-earned truths reel a viewer back in.

"[3] Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times said the film had compassion for the "wounds of childhood" and the "trap of ethnicity.

"[4] She praised the work of the cinematographer Paula Huidobro, noting that she captured the expanse of the Montana plains and big sky while having "cross-fades [that] parallel the ebb and flow of Virgil’s memories and hallucinations.