Wonderful Movie

People are voting emotionally.

Blistering performances.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A very good film, one that is not easy to get into initially but is very rewarding once you stick with it. The Claim does take its time to set up and is a little pedestrian in doing so for my tastes, and will test the patience of others(looking at previous comments The Claim seems to have divisive opinions and understandably). Wes Bentley and Sarah Polley's characters are also not very well developed, not helped by a subplot that is unmoving and under-baked and a rather detached performance from Bentley. What is especially good about The Claim is how it looks, it is filmed absolutely beautifully and the scenery and wintery wastelands are both stunning and brooding. Michael Nyman's music is tense and hypnotic, though one asset that not everyone will have the same opinion about because people will argue that it's repetitive as well. I can understand, the chord structure and progressions are relatively so but the atmosphere it has and the orchestration are done really well. The songs are lovely, and sung as effectively sung and placed. The Claim is a very intelligently written film, one of Michael Winterbottom's strong points has been that even when a story is loose or not as linear as one expects(nothing wrong with that, there are a lot of great films that are somewhat unconventional) the script always comes alive in how thoughtful and intelligent it is, and that is the same with his direction as well. The story once it gets going is fascinating with mostly engaging subplots and well-fleshed-out characters(especially Mullen's Dillon), it is slow and deliberate but it is a film that is very rich on atmosphere. Also The Claim is based on The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy's writing is vivid stuff and the storytelling is also paced deliberately, The Claim makes an effort to stick to the spirit of that story and also to match its pace but admittedly more slowed down to allow the atmosphere to come through. And come through it does making the film really elegiac and haunting in tone, the moving scenes like the ending are really emotionally powerful. The Claim may not be your traditional Western, rich in atmosphere but not so much on action. But from what action there is, it is well staged and not that confusing. Peter Mullen is mesmerising giving his conflicted character a lot of meat and brooding intensity. Milla Jovovich has a beguiling presence, Sarah Polley while not having a well-developed character is still very able(much more so than Bentley) and Nastassja Kinski is very touching in a smaller role. In conclusion, The Claim is beautiful to watch, intelligent and brilliantly atmospheric, one of those films that proves that ambitious does work. 8/10 Bethany Cox

In this otherwise engaging film, the speech by the female actors is disturbingly anachronistic. Their speech sounds like generic end-of-the 20th century American: rushed, slurred, decreasing volume and clipped or swallowed at the end of their sentences. The film is set in California, but long before Valley Girl became Hollywood movie standard. Contrast this with Mullan's "accent." The interpersonal communication, especially in the more casual dialog, displays a distinctly late 20th century urban/suburban attitude. This seems like a directorial problem, an attempt to produce a natural/"naturalized" immigrant speech which only a great UK actor like Mullan can do, while the others, from their European roots, have only the accents and speech patterns they absorbed in 20th century California and environs to fall back on (another IMDb commentator half humorously suggested that this regression was due to the very cold weather during the shoot).

Some of the things that make this a bad movie: I. The movie is confusing, either intentionally (pretentiously) or due to ineptitude.A. A flashback near the beginning of the movie gives no indication that it is a flashback. There's just a shot in which we see people we haven't seen before, without any verbal or stylistic suggestion that this is a scene from the past. The younger actors portraying Dillon and his wife in the flashback bear no resemblance to the actors playing the same roles in the present.B. Although approximately twenty years have elapsed since Dillon sold his wife, he appears to have aged at least thirty years, while she has apparently aged less than ten years. The two actors portraying the woman look so close in age that either of them could have played the part in both the present and the flashbacks. That would have alleviated a small amount of confusion.C. The two unfamiliar actors portraying Dillon and his right-hand man are approximately the same age, have the same build, are the same height, have the same style of gray beard, and wear the same style and color of clothing and hat.II. Much of the plot and the characters' actions seem unmotivated.A. Why does Dillon sell the woman and baby? Near the beginning of the movie, when we see him do this in a flashback, it makes a little more sense. We are led to believe that he has no more attachment to them than to hitch hikers he picked up along his way. His only description of their relationship is that he has "been dragging them across the country," and the woman barely protests. There is little or no emotion or hesitation. It's somewhat believable that he might trade them for gold. But what gives him the right to sell them? Does he own them? Much later in the movie we find out that he and the woman were married and the baby was his. Near the end of the movie, there is a vague implication that he was drunk when he sold them (although there was no hint of it in the flashback). Drunk or not, he must have been pretty angry at both of them for some reason we are never let in on.B. Why does Dillon move his house? It seems to be no more than a gratuitous action scene to give this soporific movie a moment of liveliness (like the pointless explosion of the survey party's supply wagon).C. Why do Dillon and many of the town's men go ballistic when the railroad engineer decides that the tracks can't go through their town? Did the railroad have a contract with them? Did the railroad owe them anything? Dillon and his men were not justified in showing up with rifles and threatening the railroad surveyors.D. Why does Dillon murder two railroad men, and why are there no consequences to him for this brutal, pointless act? There are at least two references to a sheriff in the town, yet he never makes an appearance. No one seems to be upset at all as a result of the murders.III. The actors use accents inconsistently. Both Dillon and Lucy sometimes have accents, and sometimes don't. Dillon, in particular, is ridiculous because at times he has almost no accent and then in the next scene he has a thick brogue that's barely understandable.IV. Anachronistic speech. "You're full of ****!" in 1867? V. Anachronistic hair styles.A. All of the women in the movie, be they prostitutes or not, have stringy, badly groomed hair hanging in their eyes. Try to find a photograph from the 1860s of any woman, anywhere, of any occupation or social class (including prostitutes) with hair like that. Either a studio portrait or a candid shot. You can't.B. Several men of the survey party have long, poorly groomed hair. This is not from the 1860s; it is left over from western movies of the early 1970s.VI. The railroad surveyors are portrayed as semi-literate ruffians. In reality, railroad survey engineers were college-educated, literate men (and real, 19th century college).VII. The railroad survey takes place in deep snow.A. How do they steady their tripods on the snow? B. They are measuring the snow surface, which, in the Sierra Nevada in winter, can be several yards deep. What use would that be? The ground surface would be incorrectly measured, and many prominent topographic features would be overlooked.VIII. The story is set in a mining town, with a large stamp mill next to the hotel and residences where most of the action takes place, yet the mill is obviously never running and the miners seem to spend all of their time carousing and whoring. If this mill had been in use we would have heard it roaring and seen it pouring smoke night and day throughout the movie. Apparently no mining is going on at all. Only the prostitutes are employed.IX. General implausibility.A. A large, wood-framed house is dragged (for no apparent reason) over several hundred yards of ungraded ground, down a hill slope. When it arrives at its destination, no leveling takes place; it's just perfect the way it lands. Dillon, the owner, walks inside and there are no cracks in the walls or broken windows. Even more amazing, the tables and shelves are covered with vases of flowers, decorative pottery, and sculptures that have not tipped over.B. Dillon sets fire to the town with a magic torch. All he has to do is tap any object, be it upholstery, wooden wall, or thick timber framing, and it instantly bursts into fully engulfing flames.In conclusion, the evidence appears to indicate the unfortunate fact that this movie is FULL OF ****!

Beautiful screening of Hardy's novel which, while just 1.20 minutes long ,achieves epic proportions due to it's well paced narrative, great acting and setting, some breathtaking winter landscapes. The music is great with a special mention to the performances of Lucia.The movie tells the story of a family divided by the greed and naivety of the man, greatly played by Peter Mullan, who sells his wife and young daughter for a claim to a gold-rich land property. He will achieve wealth, but will always be haunted by his past. Twenty years later he will try to make amens, but will have to pay the ultimate price in order to regain his honor.While shot in a blue tint, the movie is very colorful in depicting the life of multi-ethnic immigrants, as well as the life in the American gold rush at the turn of the 19-th century and also the end of a town which fate didn't favor to be crossed by the yet to be built railway. The ballad of Noreen Bawn remains haunting and furthermore accentuates hardship and turmoil these settlers went through their quest for a new life, gold, or redemption.