River Queen

Plot synopsis:
The film takes place in New Zealand in 1868 during Titokowaru's War between the Māori and New Zealand colonial forces. Sarah O'Brien (Samantha Morton) has grown up among soldiers in a frontier garrison on Te Awa Nui, the Great River. Pregnant at 16 by a young Maori boy, she gives birth to a son. When, 7 years later, her son, Boy, is kidnapped by his Maori grandfather, Sarah is distraught. Abandoned by her soldier father, Sarah's life becomes a search for her son. Her only friend, Doyle (Kiefer Sutherland) is a broken-down soldier without the means to help her. Lured to the ill rebel chief Te Kai Po's village by the chance to see her child, Sarah finds herself falling in love with Boy's uncle, Wiremu (Cliff Curtis) and increasingly drawn to the village way of life. Using medical skills she learned from her father, Sarah heals Te Kai Po (Temuera Morrison) and begins to reconcile with her son (Rawiri Pene). But her idyllic time at the village is shattered when she realises that she has healed the chief only to hear him declare war on the Colonials, men she feels are her friends, her only family. Her desperation deepens when she realises that Boy intends to prove himself in war, refusing to go back down river with her. As the conflict escalates Sarah finds herself at the centre of the storm, torn by the love she feels for Boy and Wiremu, anguished over the attachments she still has to the white man's world, and sickened by the brutality she witnesses on either side. And when the moment comes, Sarah must choose where she belongs; will she be forced back into the white man's way of life, or will she have the courage to follow the instincts that are telling her where she truly belongs?

Tags: dramatic, romantic, action

Review:
I also found the first half hour or so really hard going, it seemed disjointed and felt more like a long short film.
Overall the film is worth a look I'm sure everyone will get something out of it.Note, If your a fan of Kiefer Sutherland.
River Queen was a beautiful movie.
The unique beauty of the NZ scenery was stunning, the music, which seemed to be an amazing mixture of Maori and Irish influence was very moving and added a great deal to the energy of the movie as a whole.
I don't think the acting was brilliant, although the boy was superb in the one scene where he's telling his mother off, but the actors themselves were attractive and enjoyable to watch.I would highly recommend this movie if you enjoy stunning scenery, visual artistic effects with water and color, a good story based on history, and nicely placed and original use of music, or if you enjoy learning the history of a very unique culture that so few people know of..
It really got under my skin, it's a historical drama, but dream, desire, and vision saturate the story, making it like no other.Also being from Aotearoa and with Maori blood having been mixed into my veins, it was fantastic to see such a good film finally being made of that clash of cultures.
The landscape and the Wanganui River were filmed to perfection.This movie haunts me.
It's great to finally have another Vincent Ward movie.
Peter Thompson, on this morning's Sunday show, gave River Queen a very favorable review; the review's timing was perfect because last evening Diane and I watched this new Kiwi film and drove home with mixed feelings about what we had just seen.Thompson's reviews are usually spot-on for us but in this instance we are still not sure.
Yes, Vincent Ward's story was superb: huge amounts of recognizable human drama, multidimensional characters, a gigantic historical background and everything framed by New Zealand's natural beauty.
This last comment will take on meaning with the watching of the film because certain Maori characteristics play a huge visual as well as plot role in the film-perhaps unexpectedly for some viewers more than others.
Alun Bollinger's cinematography beautifully captures Ward's shot selection; it is impossible to leave the theater and not have been captivated by the physical beauty of the New Zealand landscape.I think the question must be asked: If I thought the film was so good, why did I only give it a rating of eight?
I suppose that is just a matter of cinematic taste particular to one person and should not be used to paint an entire film.River Queen is definitely worth seeing.
The subject matter alone is worth the effort, with excellent acting by all concerned and magnificent scenery beautifully captured in thee film.
The scenery was stunning, the acting superb, the story brilliant, and the music was a hauntingly beautiful match to an incredible film.
I always thought it would be great if a film was set during the Maori wars that was similar to Michael Mann's "The Last of the Mohicans".
The chemistry between the main actors is powerful and moving and keeps the people of the story to the fore, stopping them from being engulfed by the powerful images of the war.I always thought it would take our own Peter Jackson (should be Sir Peter) to make a film of this quality in New Zealand and about New Zealand.
River Queen demonstrates that there is an amazing depth of movie making talent in this small country that time and again punches way above it's weight..
An intense and unforgettable movie experience about a mother's search for her lost son, at a time of wars over land and racial misunderstanding..
To his always uniquely beautiful images (filmed by Alun Bollinger, one of New Zealand's greatest cameramen) he adds an enthralling story not only about a mother's search for her lost son, but also about a time of violence in 19th Century colonial history when Maori and Pakeha were inextricably mixed on both sides of a war about land and racial misunderstanding.
Moving performances by the great Maori actors Cliff Curtis and Temuera Morrison and by Samantha Morton.
It is lovely to look at, the scenery is lush, but the detail of the story, in particular the characters, are totally unbelievable.
All in all, this is a clear case of commercial interest over quality and when you're trying to be The Mission, this kind of thing wrecks your chances of success.Speaking of accents, there were a couple more problems, one being the striking modernity of Boy's accent which acted to dispel the feeling of being transported to another time.
Perhaps a lot has been lost in editing, perhaps this was meant to be a three hour film or a mini series where these things could've been fleshed out, but I can only judge what I've seen.Now the biggest problem, Sarah's (Morton) relationship with Doyle (Sutherland) is incomprehensible.
The fact is that her affection for him is not conveyed in any way until her having to choose between him and her son, the conflict she goes through at this point was frankly ridiculous and killed the movie for me.
this movie didn't work at all for me, but it is top notch to look at, you really won't see anything more stunning in terms of scenery, there are some good performances and my wife liked it..
Certainly happy enough to watch it again.On second viewing, familiar with the story and characters and confident in the knowledge that I was indeed looking at the Whanganui, the pace seemed good.
I particularly appreciated the recreation of warfare in the New Zealand Wars.Others have suggested that the movie was unduly biased towards the Maori.
This film was great as i'm still buzzing about the movie weeks later recommending it to heaps of others.
For a New Zealand film it was wonderful, it really showed how beautiful New Zealand is and identifies how Our Maori people are unique and watching it makes me feel even more proud to be Maori.
All the critics need to remember how little New Zealand is compared to other Countries and at least the most important people believe in the movie and thats all that matters..
I noticed in the reviews, one comment saying that none of this movie makers films have become blockbusters.
I was really looking forward to this movie but sadly it didn't live up to expectation.A good movie has the audience identifying/empathising/sympathising with the main actor.
Unfortunately this was very hard to do with Samantha Morton.The storyline seemed very disjointed and didn't flow as it should/could have done.Keifer Sutherland appeared to be little more than window dressing and made me wonder why he agreed to play what appeared to be a bit part.
Beautiful scenery and the acting of Tem Morrison and Cliff Curtis was about the only plus.Maybe by being a kiwi I set the bar higher for locally made films.
With an interesting premise (in the conflicts between Europeans and indigenous peoples sometimes the battle lines were not so clear), this should have been a good film.
But the story is sabotaged by the director's overriding infatuation with his own cleverness twinned with a very poor script.Yes, the natural setting is beautiful and, yes, the movie is authentic to its 19th century historical setting.
But the filmmaker keeps gilding the lily over and over again, adding layer upon layer of over-the-top musical accompaniment, not to mention a completely unnecessary voice-over, to the soundtrack, that ultimately overwhelm the viewer and, by calling attention to themselves, take away from the story.To me, it was clear the director, with his microscopic closeups and the endless recurrence of the musical motif of "Danny Boy" (of all things!) was trying to make a New Zealand version of an epic Sergio Leone film, something on the order of Once Upon A Time In The West.
Apart from the beautiful imagery thanks to New Zealand cinematographer Alun Bollinger, this film is not worth seeing.The storyline is so fragmented and lost that it's hard to know what is going on at any given time, and just when you think you're following then the direction changes again, like a lost bi-polar puppy dog.The musical score is awful, relying too heavily on extremely emotive pieces that try to force the audience into feeling a certain way, as if the instruments were acting as an emotions queue sheet  'feel sad here'; 'feel shocked here'; 'feel scared here'.
On top of that, the repetitive samples used over and over again leave the audience on the verge of laughter.Gone are the days of silent film, where musical instruments were the sole portrayal of voice  but you wouldn't think so while watching River Queen.The voice-over was so over-utilised that one has to wonder if this film really even needed any accompanying imagery.
I thought so.All in all I cannot recommend this film for viewing, unless you wear some ear-muffs and just go with the scenery in mind..
I remember back when it first hit the Silver Screen and all the negative reviews and bad luck during the making of the film, and couldn't see what all the fuss was about.The War scenes could have been better, yes.
1 for Samantha, who is a great actress, too bad the production made everyone look like amateurs out there.the other 1 goes to cinematography, which was indeed good.Other then that my friend, this is one bad movie.I don't even feel like making an elaborate post on this, it was just horrible production.
I'd just like to make note of the dramas around the filming of 'River Queen'.
Vincent Ward was fired - thankfully Alun Bollinger replaced him, so his artistic vision wouldn't have been altered drastically - until post-production, or until Samantha Morton left the country.
And if you don't believe me go ahead and watch it for yourself.The movie starts of slow, the storyline makes no sense at all.
However, the film did suffer from some poor leads - Samantha Morton (Sarah) especially came across as unconvincing.
On the other hand, Cliff Curtis, Temuera Morrison and Rawiri Pene (as Sarah's son "Boy") were well rounded and believable.The last 20 minutes of River Queen came across as particularly compressed and rushed.
The anticipation of seeing Temuera Morrison, Cliff Curtis AND Keifer Sutherland all in the one movie had me salivating!
On the positive side the Maori fight scenes were raw, real and raunchy (well Temuera had a great time!)but again I was not totally convinced.
Look, it was a good movie, easy to watch,and entertaining in its own way.
Good enough for me to enjoy the characters, feel something for them, and be suspended for the duration of the story.No, I tell a lie there...
i think the scene where the native chieftain is making love to his newly acquired beautiful young wife while his tribe is engaged in a bloody battle against the European settlers is pregnant with symbolism .also when the Irish woman sneaks out of her home with her fellow-countryman to be with the brother of her dead boyfriend and the adopted father of her son only to come back to find that her Irish friend has died , i think that was an unexpected twist in the woman's story ,i thought she would eventually marry her Irish friend especially after she appeared to "lose" her son again, after finding him, to the savage ways of his father's people .
For weeks I had been looking forward to seeing this movie only to find myself hugely disappointed after wards.
In my opinion, the only good thing 'River Queen' had going for it was the amazing scenery used as backgrounds.
The story line was all over the place, Samantha's character Sarah was very difficult to understand and what on earth were all the many close ups of her face for?
It brought absolutely nothing to the story-if there was one at all!A better actor for the part of Boy could also have been selected, to me it sounded like he read his lines straight of the script while shooting his scenes.Overall, a real shame as it could have been such a good movie..
There are lots of truly incredible scenes of the natural beauty of New Zealand's north island.
And the music is haunting and is still running through my head 24 hours after seeing the movie.Even after traveling to Mauri (native) territory and saving the Mauri chief's life, our heroine is presented as very Pakea (white) in culture and outlook, telling her son she wants to take him to "our home" with the settlers.
We found it less than plausible that she wouldn't have expected her 13-year-old son's identification with the Mauri life after 6 years of living with his Mauri grandfather, and by his wanting to go to war (had she never met any teenage boys before?).But that said, one thing we appreciated about this movie is that it didn't glorify the warfare.
The ending, where the heroine looks back on the futility of the wars, is moving and poignant.We found some of the Irish accents hard to follow, but the DVD offers subtitles.My wife and I have no problems giving this a 10/10..
Throughout the whole movie, at least I for one, never felt invested in journey, and it seems that this is the main struggle of the movie – engaging the audience.The movie tells the story of Sarah, an Irish medic in the English army on New Zealand.
Mothering a half-caste with a native Maori, a young man who quickly goes on to die of the fever, Sarah raises their boy in the colonized ways.
Sarah sets out on a journey to find her son again, and while it is a decent premise for a plot, as mentioned the movie struggles telling the story in an interesting way.Much to my begrudging side, the director is guilty in heavy use of shaky-cams, creative zooming and hasty editing.
In River Queen, the method isn't used to the irritating degree, it isn't as dizzying as how the Hunger Games used it, but still I would definitely enjoyed the movie more had they decided to shoot it in a normal way.If there is one thing the movie does get right it is scenery, music and effects, with these three factors done almost flawlessly.
New Zealand no doubt has an amazing nature and wildlife, and the movie succeeds in portraying the rivers and forests as a last frontier between the European civilization and the native tribes.
There's little CGI, and since I'll never get my stop-motion robots from the eighties back, I would say it's refreshing to see a movie that is a little bit real and authentic.More mediocre, if not disappointing, is the acting, with the main actress of Samantha Morton coming across as quite bland and uninteresting, with acting rather dependent on the different situations.
It's a shame, because Irish accents really are smashing, and there are times when Sarah isn't that bad a character.
Better, if also quite bland, are the other main roles of Rawiri Pene as Boy, Kiefer Sutherland as Private Doyle, Cliff Curtis as Wiremu and Temuera Morrison as Te Kai Po. All of these are men of different meaning to Sarah's life and journey, and with the exception of a mediocre romance with a certain native, and the rather good performance of a certain chief, the actors are okay.If there is one thing I would say about this movie though, it is that the war between the Maori and the Europeans is portrayed in a very good manner.
(If a tad moralistic, but hey) I guess I would recommend it to you if you're interested in the time period, as the movie is quite good at portraying the era.
However, if you're looking for a deep and emotional story of family, love and strong heroines, you would probably find it somewhat, well, mediocre, at least when it comes to engagement.
I'd say Aliens would be a good choice, if not just for the reason that it is a badass movie I would rather watch than this.
A troublingly good film, trying too hard.
The plot issue of the film is simple: in the midst of the Maori/British conflict over land use in the late 1850's, a young Pakeha (in this case Irish) woman (Samantha Morton) becomes pregnant by a young Maori.
Morton (who plays Sarah) has the difficult task of acting out her conflictedness between her Pakeha world and the Maori world of her son.
Keifer Sutherland (who plays the Irish soldier Doyle)plays a limited part in the film.
Director Vincent Ward gives us great location shots from the central North Island area of New Zealand - mostly long-lens river shots, a few gorgeous aerial shots, supported by action shots in the battle scenes.
The film is rushed and disjointed in places, but at 114 minutes long, Ward may have felt he was working against the clock.
The daughter of a British army surgeon, Sarah(Samantha Morton), falls in love with the son of one of the Maori leaders.
By the age of six, "Boy" is kidnapped by his father's family and Sarah will begin her search for him with a man(Kiefer Sutherland),who is deeply in love with her.Two-time Oscar nominee Morton is definitely the star of this movie.
I find the title RIVER QUEEN very misleading and the DVD cover with Sutherland only and making you believe he is the leading star should be a crime..
The story had potential and I feel sorry for the overseas actors who must have known they were on a turkey shoot while they were filming.
I noticed a few shortcuts taken on the Maori protocol side of things, but this was probably due to movie length time restraints etc.