This movie from 1984 was released in the shadow of Ingmar Bergman's Fanny & Alexander (1982), and I believe it has much improved after 40 years. Both films show mighty and proud families with lots of moral load and hardships, but Bergman's vision is of course world class production and this is just school theater play.
It is not "fun to watch" because the main protagonists are not heroic in romantic sense, not true evil also, but very ugly. They all make terrible things to hurt the people around them. Dialogue is delivered in stiff manner, but actually poetic and deeply written.
There are some amazing costume and set details in the film like historic cars and great locations. This film will get better and better as time goes on. It captures so much conflict from class society and christian morals clashing with new liberal values.
