Undescribable Perfection

Fantastic!

A different way of telling a story

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

A magnificent look at American history.Angelina Jolie and Dana Delaney were standouts (as usual).There was laughter, tears, joy, and excitement - and that was just me!!!I thoroughly recommend this movie as a well acted, and quite accurate from what I've read, drama about the early west.I LOVE American history, and this movie transported me back to a time that was not THAT long ago, but far removed from the comforts of modern times.

. . . but its one flaw is too glaring to permit that. The problem: The plot is *insane*. Within the first twenty minutes of the movie, the main character, somewhere-around-ten-year-old Euphemia, has been orphaned and uprooted from her home, The Alamo has fallen to Mexican soldiers, and the wives and children of the Texan army have to high-tail it to . . . erm, somewhere else. The movie reads kind of like one of those stories written by bored fifth-graders who pass around a piece of paper, each putting down a sentence without being allowed to see what just happened, and it doesn't come close to making sense. What emerges in this case is a repeating sequence of menacing-looking guys showing up on horseback and causing, whether deliberately or indirectly, the demise of a handful of supporting characters.What could obviously have been a seventeenth-rate TV movie was saved by spectacular performances from each and every member of the cast. Dana Delany is the ideal big sister, reassuring and confident, but allows us occasional glimpses at her fear and grief that save the role of Sarah from being stereotyped and make it touching and very real. Annabeth Gish endows her character Euphemia with just the right combination of sincerity, compassion, and stubbornness to keep her believable and endearing.(NOTE: ONE SMALL SPOILER COMING UP IN THIS PARAGRAPH)I have never seen Angelina Jolie act in anything else (unless you count trailers), but her absolutely flawless performance here as Georgia has instantly made her one of my favorite actresses. She's flexible enough to infuse many of her lines in this very serious movie with a charming brand of ironic humor ("I'll be old before I'm twenty-five and dead before I'm thirty!") and convey absolute rock-bottom misery literally two scenes later. I have never cried harder than I did while watching Georgia struggle through her tears to sing her dying child to sleep.(FURTHER NOTE: THE SPOILER'S OVER) I could go on and praise the specific high points of every actor in the movie, but suffice it to say that the performances are perfect and more than make up for the out-there plot and flat script. Even were it not for that fact (sorry, opinion, I guess), I strongly recommend - nay, I insist (lol) - that anybody with even a remote interest in costume see this movie. The pioneer women wear really boring clothes (except Euphemia once dons a very strange and very ugly hat), but spoiled plantation girl Georgia's gowns are real works of art.

The role of women in the settling of the frontier has always been, to say the least, underreported. Most films about the settling of the west portray women as either saloon girls--in other words, prostitutes--or virginal school'marm types. One day someone is going to make a good movie about the role of women in the settling of the frontier. Unfortunately, this one isn't it.There are several major problems with this film. First, the script. It's simplistic, overwrought, overheated, preachy and loaded with phony dramatics. Second, there's the sttitude. While most films on this subject pretty much inexcusably ignored women at the expense of men, this one does just the opposite, which is just as inexcusable. There's no real chemistry between Dana Delaney and Powers Boothe, who plays her husband. The rest of the cast is weak, too, and the performances range from adequate to junior high school level. The movie also, for some reason, LOOKS cheap. It has that cheesy look to it that a lot of spaghetti westerns had in the '60s. The whole production looks rushed, like they were running out of money and had to get it done on time.There's a good story to be told here, but the people who made this movie haven't the slightest idea of how to go about it. Avoid this one.

Historical movies or fictional movies based on actual history are so often centered completely around men. Same as the history books. This does NOT mean that women didn't contribute to or play their parts in history and this movie, True Women, is another shining gem in the growing trend of Herstorical Movies. (see Paradise Road for a herstorical movie based on fact).The story is about 3 women and how their lives were touched and influenced by several now historical events such as the Trail of Tears and the Alamo. We see how they actually played their own parts in influencing the OUTCOME of some of these events as well.