River Queen
by Vincent Ward, Alun Bollinger
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DVD details
Actor: Anton Lesser, Kiefer Sutherland, Stephen Rea, Temuera Morrison, Vincent WardDirector: Alun Bollinger, Vincent Ward
Brand: Wellspring Media INC
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Running Time: 114 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-11-25
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Weinstein Company
DVD Reviews of River Queen
DVD Review: Awesome Beauty of New Zealand's Whanganui River
Summary: 4 Stars
I saw both the good reviews and the bad. After viewing "River Queen" for myself, I cannot share the negativie comments encountered in many reviews, nor did I find reason for the praises of Samantha's Morton's performance.
Largely a fault of the script, I fail to see what Cliff Curtis' Wiremu sees in her Sarah in the first place. Samantha/Sarah comes across as a moody, shallow, whiny, self-centered, sometimes even hysterical girl, who was supposedly such a great surgeon/healer, yet does not try to assist a dying Old Rangi, nor does she ever bother to check what could be done for Wiremu's little son, Timoti, and never inquires from Wiremu about his health after he chops off his finger in exchange for Boy's life. Even once hidden in the cave she is more concerned about herself "belonging with Boy's family" by asking Boy to put a moko on her chin - a cultural faux pas to say the least - than checking on Wiremu's wellbeing. That in my mind would have proven more to Wiremu that she truly cared for him than a moko. Also, when Wiremu risks his life to see her by bribing the guards, there was no real purpose in her rebuke; she says "everything is changed - Doyle is dead," so apparently it was quite acceptable for her to be intimate with Wiremu while she deemed Doyle alive, but unacceptable to be with Wiremu once Doyle was dead. It was very unfair of her to get Wiremu's hopes up (how he ever found her in her "hide-away" is beyond me), and reject him precisely when the time to flee the hatefulness and racism of a Major Baines was best. She would always have been under Baines' scrutiny and viewed as suspicious, and as she says, "she has no man to wed." (She must mean no white man, as at this point it is quite clear that Wiremu loves her). That scene when Baines sadistically drags her from the surgery bed to show her how a European woman is mistreated for "fraternizing with the enemy" should have told her enough, that she could never be true to herself living under that society's bias. Then there are the nonsensical wardrobe changes while she is fleeing from the British. She jumps into the river in her greenish-blue dress, yet emerges from the river cave in something that looks a lot like that wedding dress she wore earlier. And when she is shot while admiring her moko, she is clearly not carrying any additional clothing with her as she floats downriver, yet we see her years later hoeing sweet potatoes in that same greenish-blue dress that she presumably left behind in the cave far away from her new home.
On the other hand, I truly enjoyed Cliff Curtis' portrayal of Wiremu. This under-appreciated actor had such a presence - and a welcome change from playing drug smugglers and kingpins. He truly embodied Wiremu. The most touching scene in my opinion was when she spends the night with her son's extended family in the long house, and Wiremu is trying to touch her arm, as it were, trying to move his own arm past Boy, and is stopped by Boy's shifting around. There was so much unspoken expression in this, something that Samantha Morton never was able to communicate. The script fails Cliff too: it is totally unclear how Cliff/Wiremu manages to be upriver, and then again downriver, seemingly within moments, while the boat that took a blindfolded Samantha upriver needed several days to get there. Some things about Cliff's character really would have benefited from being fleshed out more. The viewer is left with more questions than answers.
Temuera Morrison was a delight as the wily chief, of course the fact that he wore contact lenses that concealed the whites of his eyes greatly added to this image. He did show himself to be a man of character by appreciating that she had healed him and not going back on his word. And his personal liberties his character takes with others' wives appear somehow acceptable as "the chief's right."
Why Kiefer Sutherland was chosen to be on the cover of the DVD is beyond me; his part is minor and seems to be only window-dressing, plus it was totally senseless to have us view his bare backside. His performance is less than memorable; he could have benefited from some "real" Irish language lessons, not that fake stuff Hollywood seems to enjoy ("the English language should always be clear, but the others - make it up as you go along, and when in doubt, mumble," seems to be the voice coaches' advice). Any real Irish actor could have played this part and possibly have become a true counterpart to Wiremu. I think there was simply no contest between the two. Again, in a lack of script continuity, Kiefer/Doyle immediately recognizes Boy's identity in the battlefield, while dizzy Samantha/Sarah only recognizes her son after feeling the scar on his knee, and oh wonder, never ever by the birthmark on his face.
Stephen Rea was somewhat believable, as he is a decent actor, but even he cannot rise above the script. The part where his character is leaving one of his daughters behind seemed to have warranted a bit more context. His character definitely had a great intolerance for Maoris in general and their customs in particular. As indifferent as the script says his character is toward issues such as violating the Maori grave site, it does not make sense for the old Maori woman to then reveal to him that Old Rangi took his grandson. And if she was more loyal to the settlers rather than her own people, could she then not have aided Sarah in finding her boy?
Major Baines, on the other hand, was so despicably good, you just would love to hate him. In fact he did remind me of quite a few real-life hypocrites I have met in my own life, obsessed with the idea of "putting white women in their place".
In light of the above gaffes and inconsistencies, I got to the point that I loudly wished I could been there, looking over the scripters' shoulders with some constructive criticism. Because this film has some truly great features: the awesome scenery, exquisite music scores, excellent Maori actors playing Maori characters, attempts (but sadly also some missed opportunities) to depict particularities in Maori culture, etc. I believe some of the problems stemmed from external issues, such as weather, illness, accidents and the probably unwarranted firing of Ward, so they probably pushed just to finish the shoot. Nevertheless, Cliff Curtis was the leading man and by far overshadowed the other male actors; thus he should have gotten top billing. Samantha Morton was not at "flawless" as Screenjabber makes her out to be, and I do not necessarily consider her the "star".
Even though the script continuity suffered from too much and inconsistent cutting, I did appreciate how the end flowed into the scenes at the very beginning. I like the fact that love was allowed to prevail, and that Wiremu, Boy and Sarah were allowed to live. In an American setting, the telling of an interracial love story still typically would ensure that one of the characters, usually the non-white male, perishes in the end, to seemingly indicate that such liaisons are considered aberrations rather than simply occurrences of love between two persons.
This is probably the greatest message in the film, that love, even in the most adverse of circumstances, survives war, hatred and adversity. Despite its shortcomings (as I am a stickler for continuity), I sincerely recommend this film, if at least for its visual beauty.
Description of River Queen
RIVER QUEEN - DVD MovieKiefer Sutherland sporting a kilt and a laughable Irish accent and beautiful scenery gorgeously photographed are but two of the attractions in River Queen, a 2005 film that earned considerable acclaim in New Zealand, where it was produced, but was never released theatrically in the United States. Set in the 1860s, writer-director Vincent Ward?s tale stars Samantha Morton as Sarah O?Brien, a young Englishwoman who travels with her father (a cameo by Stephen Rea) to New Zealand, where the nasty imperialists are stealing the land and trampling the culture of the indigenous Maori. A brief and dangerous liaison with a young native (who soon dies) leaves her with a child known only as "Boy." When the six-year-old?s Maori grandfather kidnaps him, Sarah embarks on a seven-year odyssey to find him, a search that finally ends when a warrior named Wiremu (Cliff Curtis) offers to take her to him if she will use her healing powers to cure the Maori chief of his "coughing sickness." And so it goes, with Sarah discovering that her son is torn between his two heritages while she herself is attracted to both Wiremu and the soldier (Sutherland) who defends her--all while the Maori "rebels" and their colonial oppressors are battling it out in the woods and along the rivers of this untamed wilderness. The idea is basically sound; the battles scenes are well staged, and Alun Bollinger?s cinematography is wondrous (although it?s sometimes so color-saturated as to suggest an overripe Thomas Kinkaid painting). But in his quest to create a great, sprawling epic, Ward too often goes way over the top, as a surfeit of heaving breasts, manly chests, searching looks, and fraught dialogue, all to set to the sounds of heavenly choirs, bring to mind a Harlequin romance scored by Enya. Most tellingly, much of the narrative exposition is delivered by Morton in voice-over, usually an indication that the script was lacking in the first place. --Sam Graham
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