This is a very well photographed film but the overall tone and pace make this one of the most demanding films to watch. Story is set in 1955 Montana and a whole city called Northfork is suppose to be evacuated because it will soon be underwater from the dam. A small boy named Irwin (Duel Farnes) is brought back to an empty orphanage because he is sick and Father Harlan (Nick Nolte) takes care of him the best he can but it appears that Irwins days are numbered. While lying in his bed Irwin fantasizes that he is an angel and wants four other angels that are staying in an abandoned house to take him with them. The angels are Cup of Tea (Robin Sachs), Cod (Ben Foster), Happy (Anthony Edwards) and Flower Hercules (Daryl Hannah). In another part of the film we see Evacuators that are sent two at a time to evacuate any stubborn remaining home owners. The Evacuators are all promised a certain amount of land for doing their job and one team consists of a father and son (James Woods and Mark Polish) and the father decides to find the grave of his wife and dig her up and bury her someplace else. He doesn't want her coffin to rise to the surface when the area becomes flooded. This film is directed by Michael Polish and co-written by his brother Mark. Together they paint a landscape so bleak that the characters in this film appear totally hopeless. The cinematography is stunning to watch with the endless Montana landscape. The sky is continuously gray and cloudy and the open fields that surround this story make the characters seem secondary. Hannah and Woods have a few fleeting moments with their performances but for the most part the actors come across emotionally distant and cold. The pace of the film is extremely slow and for some viewers it may be impossible for them to view. If your familiar with the films of the Polish brothers then your a step ahead of everyone else but for the others this may be too ponderous and bleak to appreciate. Film is demanding of your patience and the overall story leaves you at a distance which for me means that I could not fully appreciate what the Polish brothers have made. Impressive looking but extremely slow and bleak.
Review of Northfork
