Impossibly Awrful! But, Great Cinematography and Film Score

Rating: 4/10 (27 May 2015)

This movie is so amazingly, impossibly melodramatic! It's just so over the top that you can't help yourself from laughing at a certain point. And, what is that point?
(SPOILERS) At this point, every tragedy imaginable has befallen this family. One after another, people die for the sake of dying, to create "drama!" But, when Anthony Hopkins emerges from his homestead, having had a stroke, with a Popeye-type squinched-down eye, and a small blackboard strung around his neck so he can communicate, I just laughed. I know that wasn't the intention of the filmmakers, but, how could you not? Add to that, the "Trials of Tristan," the Godlike son who endlessly goes through one soul-stirring crisis of the soul after another! Way, WAY too much! (END SPOILERS)
Basically, the whole movie is like "A River Runs Through It" - The Telenovela Version! All the great cinematography and setting, but impossibly heavy-handed "storytelling" in place of the great story of Redford's film.
And yet, I keep watching this stupid thing time and again for John Toll's gorgeous cinematography, and James Horner's great film score.
But, as a film, it's howlingly awful!
**** (4 Out of 10 Stars)