In 1976 United States had misfortune of celebrating 200th anniversary of its founding under the shadow of Vietnam, Watergate and serious economic woes. There was much more luck with the nation’s alternative birthday, when 500th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America coincided with Cold War victory and triumph of all the values United States had stood for. This celebratory mood reflected on Hollywood and one of its expressions was Far and Away, 1992 period romantic epic directed by Ron Howard.
The plot begins in 1892 Western Ireland. Protagonist, played by Tom Cruise, is Joseph Donelly, impoverished tenant farmer who dreams of having his own land, although high rents make it very unlikely. Scuffles between tenants and landlords’ enforcers result in Joseph’s father (played by Niall Tóibín) getting accidentally killed and later Joseph’s farm gets burned over unpaid rent. Joseph is determined to get his revenge and wants to kill landlord Daniel Christie (played by Robert Prosky), but his plan goes awry and instead he gets wounded at nursed back to health on Christie’s estate. There he is noticed by Christie’s daughter Shannon (played by Nicole Kidman) who, despite living in wealth and luxury, considers herself constrained and wants to live like a “modern” woman in America. She talks Joseph into helping with each other escape and two of them end on the streets of Boston. Things doesn’t work out well in new country and Shannon is cheated out of her money, forced to rent room in brothel with Joseph who pretends to be her brother. Both of them work menial jobs until Joseph discovers his talent and bare knuckles prize fighter for local wards boss Kelly (played by Colm Meaney). He slowly begins to accumulate money which he hopes would be enough to travel to Oklahoma where US authorities are giving away free land.
Far and Away is an old school epic Hollywood used to make in its golden era. The main roles are played by stellar supercouple – Cruise and Kidman, who were married at the time of production. Huge budget is spent in reconstructing 1890s Boston (mostly on set in Dublin), as well as famous 1893 Land Run, arguably the most spectacular event in the history of Old West. Ron Howard also had talents of cinematographer Mikael Salomon and composer John Williams at his disposal, with the latter’s score, based on Irish folk motives, being augmented with “Book of Days”, theme song by Enya. Tom Cruise invested a lot of talent and energy in his role, including acceptable handling of Irish accent which is usually least problematic of all non-US accents for American actors. He also maintained good chemistry with his real life wife Kidman. There was also a good work by supporting actors, including Robert Prosky as seemingly evil landlord who is revealed to be likeable and well-intentioned man who simply doesn’t want to know or admit that his wealth was built at the backs of oppressed Irish farmers.
The script by Bob Dolman very conveniently establishes strong contrast between Ireland as land that suffers because of ethnic, religious and class divisions and United States where such divisions matter very little and where anyone, including impoverished illiterate protagonist can win his piece of American Dream. However, this message is muddled due to some of the scriptwriting choices that make plot depend on unconvincing coincidences, as well as “artsy” scene near the middle, where Joseph and Shannon hide in abandoned Boston house. Apart from too much melodrama, Far and Away also suffers because of poor pacing and “epic” ends being a little bit overlong. The ending is also somewhat anti-climactic, despite authors trying and failing to deceive the audience that it would be unconventional. However, those who are willing to tolerate those flaws would probably appreciate an example of an epic Hollywood doesn’t make any more.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/ Leofinance blog https://leofinance.io/@drax.leo Cent profile https://beta.cent.co/@drax Minds profile https://www.minds.com/drax_rp_nc Uptrennd profile https://www.uptrennd.com/user/MTYzNA
Unstoppable Domains: https://unstoppabledomains.com/?ref=3fc23fc42c1b417 Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax Bitcoin Lightning HIVE donations: https://v4v.app/v1/lnurlp/qrcode/drax Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax 1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
Comments
No comments yet — be the first.
