I was first drawn to this movie because it draws heavily on Swedish immigrant culture in the mid-1900s. My family was a Swedish farm family and there was a comfortable familiarity about the movie.
It's also a sentimental movie, but not in a saccharine way. The cadence is very slow and deliberate, like old Laurel and Hardys, or Thin Red Line. But because of this it makes you settle in and think about all the things that are happening to this family and their community. The sweetness is cut by ordinary tragedies, though these could have been better developed.
The movie celebrates family values, but not in a harping rhetorical sense. This is about family members who truly love each other, and stay open to and embrace changes from both outside and within. I was touched by this movie, and found it to be healing of my ideas regarding family.
Excellent performances by Moorhead, Robinson and O'Brien.
