lizshotter

Costner has been trying to green light this saga since 1988, the audience in 1988 would have loved this but 2024 is a different landscape in cinema. There's more competition and choice than ever and this story line is more hallmark channel than cinema. The storyline, the characters are well worn tropes, like a western panto. The clear markers of good men rescuing helpless, but grimly determined, white pioneer women from the well established bad guys has been done to death, by Koster himself time and time again. This won't pass muster when compared to The Power of the Dog.and Slow West, which challenge our assumptions and perceptions of the genre. We're more sophisticated than we were in 1988 and Koster has sunk a big chunk of his own cash into a giant sprawling dud of a saga.

I've never related to a character more than I did with Pauline, even down to the narcissistic and toxic feminity mother. I too sat in stair wells and doorways trying to hear what my parents were saying about me. Everything I did repulsed my mother; I wasn't feminine enough, tidy and clean enough, collected strange objects, I stole and lied and swore. If I would have seen this film 35 years ago I would have felt so much better about myself as Pauline is my hero, she's unapologetic, weird, maudlin, direct and is deeply motivated to saving her sister. It's amazing to see a teenage film that is about the love of siblings rather than boys.