AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

SnoopyStyle In late 1967, Inge (Lois Smith) loses her husband Olaf. Later on after she dies in the Minnesota family farmhouse, her grandson Lars is offered $2.2M for the land. Lars is conflicted as he recalls his grandfather's wake when Inge told him about her life with Olaf. It starts with Inge Altenberg (Elizabeth Reaser) arriving on the train carrying her phonograph in 1920. She's Norwegian who speaks little English. She is arranged to marry the reserved Olaf Torvik (Tim Guinee) although she mistakes the talkative Frandsen (Alan Cumming) as Olaf at the beginning. Her German background and a misunderstanding about the socialist party cause trouble for the couple. The Lutheran minister (John Heard) refuses to marry them and the county clerk has only bureaucratic red tapes. Harmo (Ned Beatty) is Frandsen's wife's rich banker cousin who owns the grain elevator. She is forced to stay with Frandsen and his much more capable wife Brownie (Alex Kingston) with their vast number of kids. She eventually stays at Olaf's while he sleeps in the barn. Harmo is foreclosing on Frandsen's farm anyways.There are so many touching moments. Each scene is written to its most powerful in a simple way like the picture of Olaf which she carries but the crease goes right through his face. Even her important picture is taken with the only piece of film that they had. And the girl that lost everything before she even arrived is heart breaking. The language barrier is so powerful in both drama and comedy. Both Elizabeth Reaser and Tim Guinee play it seriously which allows the humor to come right through. It is romantic and compelling. It is truly a sweet romance.

rangeriderr This film is most absorbing, but you have to be willing to watch a film that unfolds slowly. It is magnificently acted with two young actors -- Elizabeth Reaser and Tim Guinee as the leads. There is relatively little dialogue, and much of it is in German or Norwegian with no subtitles, which conveys to the audience the difficulty that they have communicating with each other.The two leads are heavily dependent upon the expressiveness of their eyes, which they do with great delicacy. The film is well-paced and beautifully photographed. The only difficulty I had was catching on that the action took place in three time periods, not just two. You had 1920 when Inge, a mail order bride comes to rural Minnesota. (The scenery looked authentic, and since some of the credits are for institutions in Montevideo, MN, a town to which I once traveled, I can understand the veracity of the setting.) The second time period, which is not so clear, is when Olaf, Inge's husband has passed away, and the third time period is more or less the present when Inge's grandson is faced with a decision of whether or not to sell the farm. There are some visual clues to separate the second and third time periods, but they are quite subtle.The second is probably around 1960, marked by the glasses frames that Inge, as an old woman is wearing; and the third, by a jacket that her great-granddaughter is wearing. Otherwise, the time differences are not totally clear, particularly at the beginning of the film, where you have flashbacks.The film struck me with its apparent accuracy. Twenty years ago, I knew an elderly Norwegian immigrant who had been the wife of a North Dakota farmer, and she had told me stories of farm life in the 1920s and 1930s. It required about 15 people to operate a steam threshing machine, and she told me about preparing lunch each day during the harvest season for 20 men; and about reading by candlelight at night; using an indoor pump at the sink; and seeking to keep warm during the brutal North Dakota winters. I visited the woman and her daughters and grand-daughter in her modern apartment which was a far cry from life during her youth. It blows me away to think about the change in this one woman's singular life from her youth to her later years -- greater changes than in any prior period in history. (In 1946, there were still more horse drawn tractors than mechanized ones in use in the U.S., and there wasn't much electricity in rural areas until the New Deal.)Although I may have missed some, I perceived no wrong notes in the film which added to the enjoyment of watching it. A most charming film from beginning to end.

Aristides-2 I give it a five instead of 3 because I didn't watch all of it; I couldn't bring myself to watch anymore of it. Odds and ends: 1. The two pre-title sequences were much too long. So much so that tedium began to set in. 'Teases' should be just that; a hook to whet your interest. I also found the two sequences slightly difficult to understand. 2. I understand this was a first time director so slack must be cut. However, camera placement was poor in a lot of the set- ups.....awkwardness. 3. Music was simplistic and therefore heavy handed. 4. The cars, rented from overprotective antique car buffs, were always so spotlessly clean. Isn't this 1920 farmland America? Actually, everything I saw in my foreshortened viewing was squeaky clean and over- scrubbed. 5. Since Olaf was Norwegian and believed he was 'sent' a Norwegian bride-to-be, why wouldn't he at least speak the language to her, however shy he was? 6. Alan Cumming's character should have been named, 'Nonny Sequitur'. 7. Finally, I think director Selim was channeling Norman Rockwell cause that's what the total effect was for me, a Norman Rockwell painting.

oj-9 I think it's helpful when watching this movie to think of it as a stage play, because modern audiences are used to the very high production values of Hollywood blockbusters, which this is not. Some Sweet Land outdoor scenes seem to be shot in front of a matte painting or blue screen, so they come across a little strangely on screen. So too, the scenes of farming tasks are unrealistic and romanticized. Also, it isn't a costume period piece; for example, Norwegian Lutheran pastors in 1920 didn't wear 1990s plastic Anglican collars with their black shirts.Nevertheless, the film-makers did a wonderful job with the story. It's set immediately after the first world war. It's a story of the prejudice an undocumented German mail-order bride encounters when she arrives someplace on the Great Plains to marry a Norwegian bachelor farmer, and a story of the struggles of changing over from traditional farming methods to modern cash-intensive mechanized farming.The stories of prejudice ring especially true to this reviewer, a Lutheran church-history buff. There are many historical accounts of the radical need among American Lutherans to repudiate their German roots during the first world war, and many ethnic conflicts in that era between groups of people now lumped together under the "white" classification on the census form.This story is a great window into what goes on in communities of more recent immigrants, and brings to mind how hard it is to perceive immigrant struggles from the outside. For example, when "white" folks read about conflicts in "latino" neighborhoods, we have a hard time understanding that the parties to those conflicts probably have Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and other heritages that are more important to THEM than the "latino" category we "whites" put them in.