FAR AND AWAY
A film review by Michael K. Ellis
Copyright 1992 Michael K. Ellis
This is a mini-review. If you are looking for a short capsule summary, you should look in some of the other reviews of FAR AND AWAY posted here. My review is meant as a contrast to the favorable reviews posted here so far. My advice is to avoid this movie like the plague.
I don't understand why FAR AND AWAY has received so many good reviews. It's possible I didn't see the same film that everyone else saw, since I can't really understand why anyone would *like* this film, much less recommend it to anyone else. The problem is, Ron Howard has made a romantic film very much in the tradition of the romantic films of the 1930s and 1940s. It has a very broad, sweeping theme anchored (and I do mean anchored, as in sinking quickly) by a love story. The best example of this is probably GONE WITH THE WIND. The major problem with FAR AND AWAY is that all the elements you would have found spread out over several of those movies in the 30's and 40's are contained in the movie. It's so busy going from cliche to cliche that it misses out on some very interesting subplots, all of which are far more engrossing than the romance between Cruise and Kidman.
I suspected something was very, *very* wrong with this movie when it started out with the father being brought home dead by his good friend, the town drunk. That's right, the first thing this movie does is play right into the old 'Irish sot' stereotype. Now, stereotypes can either be funny (like much of WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP) or they can be pathetic. This was, to my mind, pathetic, and it didn't really get any better from there. Cruise, in his attempt to kill his landlord, falls head in love with the landlord's daughter (Kidman), and we're off on the road of cliches, including the dastardly love interest, the unlikely romantic relationship between Cruise and Kidman, the voyage to the new world, the long process of getting to know each other, the injury, the return, the separation, and the whole rest of the mess. There was nothing new about this movie, there wasn't even a fresh reworking of the story. About the only thing missing was Kidman's character being tied to the train tracks (or a log in a sawmill) by the dastardly love interest. And let's examine the dialogue. "Now we can go out and get the land of your dreams, and we can finally be married, Shannon." I forget what company has been making commercials with the "widows and orphans" scenes straight out of old line movies, but those weren't any more cornball than this. As for the ending, it was without a doubt the *worst* final scene I have ever had the displeasure of viewing in any movie I've ever seen.
So, did the movie have any redeeming values? Yes. The scenery was gorgeous, and both the social situation of the Irish in Boston and the great land rush rang dead on true to me (although both were a little on the romantic side). The bare-knuckle boxing scenes were, in their own way, more graphic and powerful than the boxing in any of the ROCKY movies after the first one. I have no idea how they filmed that without someone getting badly injured. The same goes for the land race, which was, after the buffalo hunt in DANCES WITH WOLVES, the most incredible bit of re-creation I've seen. If the movie had stayed with *these* types of scenes and subplots, rather than the inane and cliched Cruise-Kidman relationship, I would have considered my admission price (matinee, mind you) well spent.
I should say one other thing about this movie. There is nothing unobjectionable about this movie, in a "moral" sense. It has (minimal) swearing, no sex, and no "unwholesome" scenes. I've seen Disney cartoons that were more controversial than this film. For that reason alone I expect it will end up cleaning up at the box office. If there was ever a movie made for the "moral middle-class" of America, assuming such a thing ever existed, this was it. Dan Quayle recently made a comment about "elite" society and "the rest of us." Well, I don't know how many "rest of us" there are for Quayle to hang with, but I'd bet they all love this movie, and take their kids to see it. I'd rather sit through something with more intellectual content than a soap bubble, thanks.
On the -4 to +4 scale, I rate this a -2. I'll give it some credit for the subplots, but the movie itself is a mess. Go see it if someone gives you a pass for it free, and concentrate on the pretty scenery. Don't bother waiting for video, either. The only reason to see this movie at all is so you can be blown away by that scenery, and it will be much diminished when it moves to video, robbing this film of whatever character it has now.
-- Michael K. Ellis ellisk@fido.colorado.edu ellis@QAL.berkeley.edu
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