A Plot with Holes You Could Shove a Piano Through

Rating: 1/10 (27 November 2007)

Okay, so let me get this straight.
Sam Neill sends all the way to America for a mail-order bride, even though there's a gaggle of missionary ladies who are crazy about him. Holly Hunter arrives with her illegitimate daughter, but she and Sam Neill pretty much ignore each other, while her daughter goes out and plays with the Maori children, who teach her to hump trees.
Meanwhile, Holly Hunter meets up with Harvey Keitel, who has custody of her piano. Even though Harvey looks as if he hasn't had a bath since he emigrated from England and most speaks in inarticulate grunts, Holly prefers him to Sam Neill, who sits around having tea with his missionary ladies. She has sex with him in order to get her piano back, one key at a time. She writes notes to him, even though he's illiterate.
When Sam Neill chops her finger off, she doesn't scream, which is odd, since real physical muteness, as opposed to psychological muteness, is so rare that it's not even worth considering. So in real life, she'd scream when her finger is chopped. The artificial metal finger she wears afterwards looks so silly that it made me giggle.
I think a lot of people were taken in by the atmospheric photography the anachronistic, repetitive New Age music, but I like only films that have plausible plots and characters, and between the holes in the plot and the unrealistic motivations of the characters, I had a problem sitting through this bit of pretentious Harlequin Romance material.