Cinematography Great, Julia Ormond Stunning, Screenplay Terrible.

Rating: 6/10 (4 July 2008)

WalMart had the DVD in the clearance bin, so I took a chance on this film. Thank God the film is on DVD so I can jump around to the good parts and avoid all the horrible filler material.
First of all, I loved the scenery that formed the film background. Who would not enjoy this splendid area, some of the most beautiful in the whole world? The Ludlow home was very rustic and inviting. The perfect backdrop for the film.
Then there was the idea of an Army officer becoming so disgusted with the abuse of native peoples that he turned his back on his military career. He attempted to redress the injustices by his incorporation of the old Cree warrior One-Stab into his household. Three sons are born to him before his wife flees back to the comforts of civilization. All this came out as promising material for a great film.
Then a young Tristan Ludlow seeks out a sleeping grizzly bear and picks a fight. Amazingly, he survives with only superficial slash marks on his arm. For an animal that can easily split a large log with one swipe of his claws, that is a pathetic response to the provocation endured. The film goes downhill from there.
The patriarch, Colonel Ludlow, is apparently content to live without the comfort of a wife in an isolated ranch in Montana. His cultured wife is too refined to stay with him in self-imposed exile. That would seem grounds for divorce even in the conservative America in the early 1900s. What kind of mother would abandon her young sons to allow her to enjoy a more comfortable life? Perhaps that explains why Tristan turned out so badly.
The youngest of three sons, Samuel, returns home from college in Massachusetts with a stunning fiancé, Susannah Fincannon, who apparently has no close living relatives. How this woman managed to support herself and move in fairly privileged social circles is left a mystery. A woman in that era would find it difficult to survive outside the support of a family. Samuel is such a nonentity that one is forced to conclude that his fiancé latched on to him in desperation for a husband to support her continued social position.
The actor Henry Thomas, who played Samuel, is six years younger than Julia Ormond who played Susannah. The age difference is so glaring as to be ludicrous. This pairing is obviously doomed from the start. I instantly knew that the plot would swiftly remove Samuel to make room for Tristan, Brad Pitt, to move in on the tempting Susannah.
Susannah is actually an admirable person, for the most part. She tries to fit in to the frontier lifestyle and to bond with the people who work for the Ludlows on the ranch. She does her best to become a useful member of the family, able to help out with ranch work when needed. What sticks for me is the protracted engagement to Samuel. She is moved in to the home of her fiancée, the family welcomes her presence. Why is she not going through with the wedding? The answer is two words, Tristan Ludlow.
Susannah has fallen for older brother Tristan, even from a distance. Samuel senses her growing infatuation and attempts to justify his claim to manhood by an absurd decision to join the British Army and fight in World War I. The two older brothers join him with lesser degrees of conviction. All the noble reasons for this decision are really covers for Samuel's feelings of inadequacy. The three brothers set out for nearby Canada, where they can join the British Army.
The war kills Samuel, wounds elder brother Alfred, and drives Tristan nuts. The two surviving brothers are released from their service for reasons left unclear. I am sure many soldiers at the front would have liked to simply walk away from the carnage. Alfred comes home and tries to woo Susannah, with her firm rejection. She waits a few months for Tristan to eventually come home.
Tristan wastes no time. He brutally takes advantage of Susannah's feelings and begins an affair with her. She hopes for a pregnancy to force Tristan to marry her, but that is not to be. How the two love birds could conduct their affair in Susannah's bedroom with no notice from the rest of the family is not explained.
Tristan eventually can endure normality no longer. He abandons his home and the woman who loves him to roam the world to 'find himself'. I tuned out of the plot right there. The family goes through numerous disasters before righting itself somewhat after Alfred takes over from the incapacitated patriarch. Susannah marries Alfred as a poor second choice and eventually kills herself in anguish after Tristan returns and marries the young daughter of the hired hand.
The movie shone in the first few minutes and went steadily downhill from there. I fail to notice all the riches other comments seem to find. Perhaps I was seeking more noble behavior in the Tristan character to make me enjoy the film.