Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Good concept, poorly executed.

Don't Believe the Hype

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It's a good thing that no one pays extra for Lifetime to be included in their cable-channel bundle (do they?) because this film was a complete waste of time -- it was 87 minutes that I'll never get back, and I'm not happy about it.This adaptation of a novel ignored one key aspect of its source material: the sexual orientation of Jordan, the Matt Czuchry character. Although the adaptation did not completely disrespect the novel by, say, having Jordan as a love interest for his old friend, Queenie, I think it would have added something significant to the story to have this woven into the narrative.Even ignoring the mismatch between novel and film on that dimension, other key elements of the story are just barely credible. How many times does Hiram tell his wife Queenie to mind her own business and stay away from Jordan, only for her to show up quite openly in the very next scene with Jordan, definitely not minding her own business? And who else thought it was completely unrealistic that a 16-year-old girl (Five) with no access to the outside world would, over the span of just a month, run away to Vegas, then come back to a nearby town (well, 50 miles away) and work in a coffee shop, periodically sneaking back to Mesadale to visit her mother?I guess it was a coup for Lifetime to get Czuchry before "The Good Wife" became popular, but no amount of his charm and acting skill can save this.

The acting isn't terrible and that's about the only thing you can say.If you read the book, you'll hate this movie as they've gutted it (and not just the "heterosexualization" of Jordan). If you liked BIG LOVE, pass this one by- it's nothing like it. If by some odd chance you read Ann Eliza Young's book (or Irving Wallace's about her) you'll hate this movie as it not only gets everything wrong but takes less than 10 minutes and that in blips. Most of the scenes in the movie last on average about 30 seconds each and there are many plot holes, some from the book and some that the movie cooked up.Just to correct a couple of historical errors: Ann Eliza Webb was NOT an adult when her father brought home his first plural wife but a baby so young she grew up in a polygamous family and had no memory of a life before it. She and Brigham Young had no children together- she had two sons with a first husband (omitted from the movie) and he had a few dozen with other women. Dramatic as it may seem, she did not flee from an angry mob- she checked into a hotel, gave constant interviews, and when she left town it was on a train and she sued him for a ton of alimony (unsuccessfully as their marriage was not legally recognized). That's an impressive number of errors considering the Ann Eliza story lasted all of about 5 minutes in this movie and could/should have been dropped altogether. (Her melodramatic ghost written tell-none is far from likely to inspire anybody in the modern era; even Ebershoff completely rewrote it and making her family far less interesting as he did so). This movie is basically a waste. I hope that most of the money went to Patricia Wettig's salary as she was by far the best thing in it. I read and did not like the book (too much purple prose and too much historical inaccuracy and too much clearly vanity driven inclusions with the murder mystery, which should have been the focus, taking up maybe 5% of the book's text). Compared to the movie, the book is a masterpiece. Not good, not so-bad-it's-good, just all around mediocre with a heaping side dish of "yeah right", followed by a yawn.

What was Matt Czuchry thinking when he made this awful film? By the way, how is the last name of this wonderful actor from "The Good Wife" pronounced?The picture is so bad that various sects would take umbrage for viewing it and associating it with them. In other words, Mormons and other groups practicing polygamy should be outraged.The use of flashbacks here makes for more confusion. Bringing Brigham Young into the milieu is insulting and certainly not rewarding.Who really cares about 19 wives, their book and their way out beliefs? This was certainly not exactly all in the family.

A reviewer claimed details were invented for dramatic effect. Actually, abuse and terror are common in the most secretive clans. Self-proclaimed "prophets" assign who will marry, reassign "disobedient" men's wives and children to others, and claim dead men's wives and children. The threat of eternal and earthly retribution for disobedience was recorded by Joseph Smith in Section 132 of Doctrine and Covenants when he acknowledged "plural marriage," the bigamy he and his elders had secretly practiced for years. Even Ann Eliza Young's history is accurate.With 30,000 to 50,000 polygamists scattered throughout the western U.S., many live in picturesque settings. St. George, UT, boasts resorts, agriculture, and mountain forests.Jordan's sexual orientation wasn't changed for politics, as indicated by an article. Parameters are looser for novels than movies. Jordan's lifestyle would demand time to explain FLDS disapproval of gays and lesbians isn't about morality but the belief that men need at least three wives and numerous children to reach the highest level of heaven.Viewers can learn about strict polygamous communities from "The 19th Wife."