Six Days in August

This is a wonderful movie to show what Brigham Young was really like, according to so many different people's journal entries from back in the 1800s. This movie even touches on the difficulty that people have accepting polygamy, and gave us a peek into many other lives we here less about like Heber c Kimball, George A. Smith, and wives like Violate Kimball and Mary Ann Young.

It does flip or forward and backward in time a little. As long as you pay attention to the dates printed on the screen it should not be hard to follow.

As for the other review that said polygamy was "enthusiasticly accepted by the women", they must have not seen the movie, or at least not the scene where Emma was crying saying that she is being tested beyond what she can handle, and Joseph said he would not choose this.

I was familiar with the history and came into the movie with a pro bias. The movie however was a disappointment. It's as if the director and writers couldn't decide which story to tell so they told too many. Within five minutes they covered twenty years of highlights from Brigham's life. This made for disjointed story telling. The maudlin acting particularly of the women who played Maryann and Emma diminished the strength of the women and the complexities of the times they lived in. While Emma acknowledged why there would be tensions in Missouri, the mob and Plant were depicted overly villainous.

It tells the story of the martyrdom of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young's succession to the leadership. The story is very complicated with a lot of characters and the writer/director, Mark Goodman, does a fantastic job of making the story engaging and easy to follow. It was a well-written, well-acted film with beautiful cinematography and a great soundtrack. You may never have heard of any of these actors. But they were all great and I hope to see them in other films for years to come. It is worth staying for the closing credits to hear the song O Give Me Back My Prophet Dear, with lyrics by John Taylor, music by Rob Gardner, and sung by Casey Elliott. It is a great film that tells an important story in Church history.

In the film the martyrdom scene isn't too specific but because this film strives for historically accuracy I will critic it for it more harshly. They showed Joseph bolting out of the window in Carthage Jail and breaking the window. Eye witness testimony stated he crawled out of that small window with one leg, one arm, and his head out of the window before a great force flinging him out of the window as like a leap or push. Newspapers from that time also describe that the window section that lifts up was still present and was not knocked out by Joseph going out of the window. They don't address enough the placement of Hyrum in the room as he died with his back turned to the door facing the window as his head was 1 foot away from the north east corner of the room and blood splatter on his clothing suggest he died on his stomach. They don't address Willard Richards being behind Joseph when at the window and the mob not shooting Richards while he was in plain line of sight.

The Good -- for all of its cult potential, and my goodness this film is filled with, the song playing through the end credits was haunting and beautiful.

The Bad -- this movie makes Witnesses look like Citizen Kane, despite having a 2 million dollar budget. It just goes to show that money can't salvage a dookie script.

The Ugly -- if you were on a small passenger plane flying over Delta, UT, Six Days might not be preferable to simply staring into your airsickness bag.

I know what you're thinking... 'Just tell us whether you liked it.' Consider this, the film is pure fiction. Almost everything on the screen never happened. Women didn't love the idea of polygamy, there was not transfiguration of Brigham Young and the truth is that Joseph Smith ordered the destruction of the printing press because it was going to publish the truth about Joseph Smith and his many wives.

There is absolutely no reason to see this movie unless you are a glutton for punishment or if you enjoy being gaslit for 2 hours.