While the whole rich girl falls in love with the poor boy routine is a little over done, Far and Away is actually a very romantic and wonderful movie starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. I think because they had such great chemistry, they made this movie into a tear jerker. Not to mention how great the story was, a part of our history that has always been ignored, the Irish immigrants coming over to America to have land and settle down. At a time when America was the new world and very exciting, where anyone could be free, Joesph and Shannon were two very lovable characters and you just keep hoping that their dreams come true.

Shannon is a very upper class lady in Ireland with her controlling mother who wishes her to marry a snobbish land owner, Stephen. Joesph is a farm boy who has just lost his father and his home has been burned by Stephen, Shannon's father owns the land, so Joesph goes to kill him, but fails. His punishment is a duel, but he and Shannon see each other and have an instant connection but won't admit it of course, but Shannon offers for him to come with her to America to claim some land with her. He accepts her offer and goes with her. They claim to be brother and sister to survive, but soon they can no longer resist each other's love, but their family may be too strong to let them be together when Shannon's family comes to get her in America.

Far and Away is a very charming film that I'm sure you will be impressed with. It's just a very romantic film, has fun comedy to it, good drama, and has terrific pictures and sights. Ron Howard is just a fine director, he got the whole feel of the old days and that race for land at the end was just shot so beautifully. Tom and Nicole did a great job, they were so beautiful to watch and made this into a great film. I highly recommend this movie, I think you'll love it.

8/10

Back in Gone With the Wind Gerald O'Hara tried to tell Katie Scarlett the importance of the land, a lesson she took the entire film to learn. For Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman it's the land, their own bit of land to work as they please and answer to no one.

The story of Far and Away takes place in a very specific time period in the history of both Ireland and America. In Ireland the home rule movement had been dealt a stunning blow with the fall of Charles Stuart Parnell in scandal. Independence had been set back and the landlords were riding high, though not without opposition.

Opposition in this case comes in the form of Tom Cruise and his family who are Irish tenant farmers about to be tossed off their land because they can't pay the exorbitant rents. Turns out the landlord's got a most fetching daughter in Nicole Kidman who's got her eye on the peasant lad.

Far and Away is first and foremost a romance, the rich girl and the poor boy, two beautiful young people we all wish we were. Of course the real affair of Tom and Nicole and their eventual marriage is fairy tale storybook stuff on its own. It sure didn't hurt the film.

They've got a rough road ahead though. In Boston they get exploited by their own people as badly as the English are doing in the old country. Of course their eventual salvation is the Oklahoma land rush where Tom can get his own land to work.

Frederick Jackson Turner was a famous American historian who put forth the thesis that the reason America escaped the class struggles and revolutions of Europe was our frontier. It didn't work out so well for those Indians already there, but the proletarian masses instead of becoming a mob that agitators could stir to revolution just went west and made opportunities. Turner's thesis is still a widely respected paradigm in the study of American history and I think if he could have seen Far and Away, he'd say Ron Howard proved his point.

Speaking of Ron Howard, it's pretty obvious he was influenced by both versions of the Oklahoma land rush previously made in the two films of Edna Ferber's classic Cimarron. He doesn't do badly in recreating Boston of the Gay Nineties and Ireland of the same period.

And Tom and Nicole certainly look beautiful even when she's working in a factory and Tom's getting clobbered in a bare knuckle prize fight. Look for nice performances by Robert Prosky as Nicole's father, Thomas Gibson as Tom's rival for Nicole and Colm Meaney as the Irish political boss in Boston.

Maybe the world needs a frontier to solve its problems.

In 1892 western Ireland, tenant farmers are rebelling. Joseph Donnelly (Tom Cruise) loses his father during an incident with the landlord. Their home is burnt for overdue rent. He seeks revenge on landlord Daniel Christie (Robert Prosky) but his gun explodes. The landlord's daughter Shannon Christie (Nicole Kidman) wants to be Modern and get 160 acres of free land in America. She grabs Joseph from a pistol duel with the cruel henchman Stephen Chase (Thomas Gibson). She takes him on as her man servant on the journey. They find out the land is in Oklahoma, but she loses all her valuable spoons in Boston. They are penniless as they meet the ward boss Mike Kelly (Colm Meaney). He gains some worth as a bare knuckle boxer. Meanwhile a mob burns down the Christies mansion and they travel to America to follow Shannon. Eventually it ends in the great race to claim land in the Oklahoma Territories.

The movie is beautifully shot by director Ron Howard. However the story is convenient and simplistic. It's as if Ron Howard wanted to check all the boxes of the era for the Irish. Everything feels manufactured. There isn't a real moment in the movie especially the pairing of Kidman and Cruise. There is no subtlety in their performance or the romance. It's not as problematic the first time around but it really annoys me with more viewings.