The Homesman
This could very well be the most depressing movie I have ever watched
Now this was a movie I was really looking forward too , staring Hilary Swank and , Tommy Lee Jones
The plot of the movie is that Hilary Swank, lives uncommonly alone out in the middle of the Nebraska Territory in the mid 1800's , before the railroad , very few and far between small settlements
And three other women in the territory have lost their minds , gone crazy , for one reason other , isolation , disease , death of their children , etc
So Hilary Swank volunteers to transport these three women all the way across Nebraska to a church in Iowa , and Tommy Lee Jones plays kind of a no good drifter that she swindles into helping her transport these women
Now it wasn't the plot that interested me so much , but the 6 week journey across the plains in the middle of no where Nebraska , no shelter , no rivers or creeks , on a horse draw wagon
But what I was really looking forward to...........
Was the cinematography of the movie , and it didn't disappoint , the scenery was like a third main character , bleak and baron , cold and unforgiving
When most people think of old west , most people think of cowboys and Indians , bank robbers and train robbers , outlaws , and the shoot outs on main street
But for me , the most interesting part of the old west , were the sod busters of the Homestead Act in the mid 1800
Young married couples from back east , or even Europe , would load up every single thing they owned in a wooden wagon and set off for Nebraska and the Dakota's on the promise of free farm land
This is the part of American History that interests me the most , over a third of the homesteaders never made it , some returning home back east , but many dying from disease and starvation
No trees anywhere so you had to make your house out of clumps of dirt , no rivers or creeks , so you better hope you can dig a well , extreme heat in the summer and sub freezing temps and snow in the winter , where you basically survived by eating dried beef and what few vegetables you grew during the summer , and by staying warm by burning dried Buffalo poop
But back to the movie , this could very well be the most depressing movie I have ever seen , the movie starts out where we meet the three women and how they go crazy , what caused their insanity , and the rest of the movie goes down hill from there , no little bitty happy part in the middle , and there is no happy ending , I will say , there is something that happens kinda sorta towards the end you weren't expecting , which even makes it more depressing
I'll admit it , there has been times I've wondered if the wife and I could have done it
When the movie was over , the wife just looks over at me and says...........
Forget It !!!
This is a hard movie to rate , or even recommend , I see on RottenTomatoes it gets about a 85%
and it is a very good movie , but it sure isn't a feel good movie
It also stars John Lithgow , James Spader , Meryl Streep , William Fichtner in small parts
But like I said , it's very good movie , but hard to recommend to people unless they have interest of the great Plains of the 1800's , or just like to sit and be depressed for two hours , it's a very slow moving movie , where nothing exciting ever happens
8/10
Richard Roeper Review
