User Reviews

This film would make a far better mini-series because of the many excellent threads not quite woven together just right. Who are the Shipes? What do they make at their factory? How did they gain power being Confederate sympathizers in the Union state of Maryland? Do the two older women worship a w.a.s.p. (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) nest in a form of witchcraft, and why are they threatened by the pseudo-Christian women's prayer group that meets at the river every day? Is the returning Shipe man still in charge of his family's factory, and if not, who is? This is potentially a great, powerful story of the seemingly never-ending results of the American Civil War; how lives are continually affected by the choices made nearly two centuries ago. I want to know much more about the sweet-spirited girl Shipe falls in love with, her crazy cousin and his sick mother, the relationship that Shipe has with all of them, and I want lots of flashbacks to their childhood as well as much more about Shipe's great-great-great-grandfather (it had to be that far back, right?) who was beaten badly by Union soldiers when he wouldn't tell them where the gold was buried. In short, I am really intrigued, but I'm just not being given near enough in an hour and a half.