Customer Reviews

Far & Away

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

When I first viewed this film when I was 10 years old on May 23, 1992, when fell in love with it from the very start. It was so rare a feeling at that age to actually feel good in a very human way, not just as a spectator. The movie's theme seems to be a very trite one: Always follow your dreams. Many films have tried to exercise this theme and failed miserably. They will pump a lot of cheesy moments into one finale, without any kind of supporting events to show that it is an earned pay off. FAR AND AWAY succeeds where these other films fail. The journey starts at point A and goes straight to point B without any pishposh in between. You are with Joseph and Shannon through their fortunes and misfortunes and see almost every step they take from getting to rural Ireland to Boston and finally to Oklahoma. What also makes it work is the onscreen chemistry between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The two had only done one movie together (DAYS OF THUNDER) before teaming up for this one. At the time, they had only been married for a year, so their new found love for each other was fresh in their minds and ready to be shared. The advantage Cruise has for playing a scrappy Irish boxer is his star status and the amount of time he spends with a personal trainer. His bulging muscles in the boxing scenes show that he's no longer the little bugger in RISKY BUSINESS. It also doesn't hurt that the film is beautifully shot, taking adavantage of the rich Irish coast and the vast farmland of Oklahoma. This beautifully illustrates the long journey of the films location and plot. How exceedingly different the images feel and how far must one travel to get to each! Perhaps another reason this film is so special to me is the complete and utter romantic feel it has. The beautiful scenery, the love between the two lead characters and actors, and the gorgeous music. The score is one of John Williams' best setting all the right moods in all the right places. He starts with traditional Irish folk sounds and moves into Coplandesque America. Watching this film, my heart always goes a flutter, thinking about how I want to achieve my dreams and ambitions. One of my dreams is true love. The way Joseph and Shannon find love is striving for their dream, not knowing it was there all along. I am madly in love with a girl right now. In my fantasies, I always picture myself as Joseph and her as Shannon, kissing on an open wheatfield, our land. Whenever I hear Enya's book of days played at the ending credits, I almost weep with joy thinking about holding her and sharing my love with her. Watching FAR AND AWAY is the closest I get to fulfilling my dreams at this point. Leonard Maltin complains of no story. If there was no story, there'd be no kind of journey and I would be completly detatched. I give FAR AND AWAY 5 stars because it has stirred almost every emotion in me for over 8 years. A movie like this deserves no less.

I might I have only been intrigued by this movie because I was bored (first saw it at 12:00 at night on TV when I couldn't sleep), but I was shocked at what a MIRACULOUS film this is. I couldn't stop thinking about it for days. For critics to say there was no story, WHERE WERE YOU DURING THIS MOVIE? All the twists and turns kept me guessing until the end. It was in no way predictable. All throughout the movie, I thought Shannon and Joseph would kiss and live happily ever after, but something would tear them apart. Films like this come few and far between. I highly recommend this epic!!!

This is easily the most underrated film of the last decade. So ujust was its nasty reception, I sometimes wonder if everyone else saw the same film I did. I think the problem may be that it simply came at a time when no one wanted a film of this kind. A closer look at Far And Away reveals it has all the hallmarks of a glittering success. Here's the story: A century ago, a rich girl escapes from her suffocating fiancee, setting off to a new life across the Atlantic and falls for a poor boy who shows her a love she's never known. Sounds like a certain £1.8 billion grossing epic historical romance, right? Well, Ron Howard beat James Cameron to it but got the timing wrong. Charming, funny, exciting, and eventually awe-inspiring, Far And Away has everything you could hope for in a movie. As for the disc - picture and sound are dandy, but decent extras are sorely missing.

Then-husband and wife Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman headlined this 1992 Ron Howard release. Joseph Donnelly (Cruise) is the headstrong brother of a family of tenant farmers, who finds himself on the boat to America after he originally went to his landlord's mannor to avenge his father's death.

Donnelly does not initially realize that Mr. Christie is actually a likeable (if absent minded) fellow, and it is his family associates who are responsible for the murder and the home burning. These Protestants look down upon the Catholic Donnellys (among many other families) as being beneath them.

While there, he meets their daughter Shannon, a firebrand self-described modern woman who would do ANYTHING to avoid ending up like her mother's stuffy Victorian friends. From ridding fast to wearing free clothes, Shannon wants much more out of life than what she originally had. When she teams up with Joseph, she gets it.

After her spoons are convieniently stolen upon arrival in America, Shannon comes to the painful realization that she does not know what to do. She is now in the position of having to learn survival skills from Joseph (who poses as her brother) if she is going to make it out to Oklahoma.

Sure, improbabilities abound in this film (Cruise hangs out with brothel girls in an age before the ready availability of condoms, but never gets venereal disease, Shannon and her family are magically reunited in Boston even after she wanted nothing to do with them and did not appear to know their new address, and Mr. Christie himself has no problems pulling his own weight in America while the rest of his family had not known how to do these things).

An excellent camera panning, a generally good script, and the hit 'book of days' by Enya easily compensate for any flaws. You become so involved in this film that the screenplay length ultimately does not matter. Well-crafted suprises maintain interest in the entire story.

Cruise and Kidman's off-screen romance is by now a distant memory, but this film will keep your own passions burning brightly.

I really liked this movie but the reviews here are even more entertaining. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman had bad Irish accents? Vivian Leigh's Scarlet O'Hara had the worst southern American accent imaginable. Her movie (...."Gone with something?... wasn't it called?) managed to survive it.

No story in Far and Away? Let's see... Spoiled rich Irish Protestant girl meets poor Catholic Irish boy and romantic sparks fly as surface insults are traded. Both dream of a new life in America but for different reasons. The parents of the girl are each magnificently portrayed by fine actors. The manager of the wealthy father's holdings, and Shannon's would-be suitor, is a man you love to hate thanks to the fine acting of this character.

The cinematography is magnificent. The story varies from epic to tragic to comic to Western in the way a true Irish immigrant's life would unfold in the period. There's action and humor. There's an underlying dream driving the entire movie. There is a beautiful young woman and a handsome young man who both have the kind of drive an Irish immigrant would need to survive the rough and tumble life in America in the late 1800's.

The costumes and sets are great. The land rush scenes are magnificent and accurately portray what has been captured in still photos of the real Oklahoma land rushes.

There are no gratuitous sex scenes though the bawdiness of life in an Irish Boston whorehouse is honestly portrayed.

There is a triumphant scene at the end where love does prevail over the desire for material wealth through land ownership.

For the life of me, I cannot see what is missing from this movie. I liked it. I bought it. I'm glad I'm not married to some of these reviewers who would complain the luxury car I just bought them as a gift did not have enough lighting around the visor vanity mirror.

Shannon Christie, the spoiled rich girl in this movie, has nothing on some of these reviewers.

This is one of greatest epics of the 1990s. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman are excellant. I thought their Irish accents were great, plus the cinematography and soundtrack are excellant. It is a classic story of how two different Irish immigrants achieve the American Dream. They make mistakes, overcome adversities, and find each other despite their differences and flaws. Some say this movie perpetuates negative Irish sterotypes, but good grief, they are the hero and heroine of the story. Say what you will about stereotypes, they do usually have SOME truth in them. Finally, the movie has intimate love, not just constant sex. A great movie about that era.

Despite the fact that I dislike Tom Cruise I must say that every once in a while he stars in a good film and does a great job. Nicole Kidman on the other hand always does a great job but, like her ex-husband, doesn't always have the best taste in screenplays.
Far and Away is, in my opinion, Tom and Nicole at their best. The characters both throw their fates into the wind of change and realize that it is only with each other will they land in the hands of grace. Call me an old sentimental fool but that's simply beautiful.
Inspiring, funny, sad and romantic, this movie has it all.

I can't believe how underrated this movie is! I never saw it because I had never really heard much about it, but when I finally saw it, I absolutely loved it, along with my whole family! I'm 20 year old girl, so obviously this is my kind of movie, but my brother loved it too because the script is so clever! This movie is hilarious, touching, incredibly romantic, and so beautiful!! The cinematography is astounding, the sets and the costumes are wonderful, and Tom and Nicole are perfect together. They have such great chemistry on screen! I have watched this movie again and again and it is one of my all-time favorites. I highly recommend this film! This is an epic film that should not have been overlooked!!!

This is a great movie. It is not historically acurate, but is inspiring to the dreamers among us. It is exciting, has great scenery, and is romantic. It's no surprise that it is romantic since Tom Cruise and Nichole Kidman were dating at the time of the filming. (They are married now.) As a DVD, it is sub par. There are hardly any extra features, and you can only view the DVD in widescreen. I soon forgot about that though, when I was engrossed in the story.

What can I say about this film to begin my review? Three words. I LOVE it. I may be a little biased, but I love things set in Ireland, Scotland, and that area. I was hooked immediately on the beautiful scenery of Ireland's west coast, and my heart was immediately stirred by the rich and dramatic, yet at times very soft and tender music. Even more so when I read "Music By John Williams" in the opening credits. But I digress.

Music and scenery aside this movie still has much going for it, and it really shines. It's a love story yes, but it's beautiful. Others have mentioned the great chemistry between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman here, and they are right. I am not a big fan of Tom Cruise (Rain Man was excellent though) or Nicole Kidman, but they played very well off each other. This film follows, again as many have mentioned, the two lead characters as they make a harrowing journey from Ireland to Boston to Oklahoma in pursuit of their dreams. His is "I'll work my own land someday" hers is "I'm modern, and I'm going to a modern place" She wants to get away from her parents old-fashioned and "stuffy" way of living.

I hate to diss other films so I'll try not to do that here. I WILL say that I loved the love story in Far And Away because it works. And it works because it is given time to develop. Joseph and Shannon hate each others guts at first and make no secret of it, but they are drawn slowly together by the perils of their journey. It is touching to see their hatred for each other change from hatred to grudging respect, to affection, and finally grow all the way to genuine love. This works MUCH better than spending a day on a ship, and saying to yourself "Oh look, there's a pretty girl up on the next deck. Let's take her dancing, partying, teach her how to spit, how to stand on the back of a ship with her eyes shut and her arms outstretched. Then I'll draw a nude portrait of her, and then we'll go and have sex in the back of a car. All witihin a period of about three or four days." (Just for the record I loved Titanic too, but the "quickie" love story took away from the power of the film JUST a TAD because the love between Rose and Jack was not allowed to GROW and DEVELOP into itself as it is here in FAR AND AWAY. In TITANIC the love between Jack and Rose was just THERE. It was just: Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy. Badda-BING, Bada-BANG, Badda-BOOM)

I'm sorry, I'm digressing again, so I'll try to keep to the point and keep the rest of this short. In summary , to me this film is a great one, well done in every part of the package. LOVELY scenery is wedded to absolutely beautiful music as two great actors are supported by an assortment of loveable aqquaintances and a couple of dastardly villians (I'm counting Mike Kelly here too, see the film to know who he is and why I call him a villian). All this comes together in a beautiful love story that has the power to touch the heart, and the tear ducts, and make you realize the importance of holding onto and going after your dreams. I loved it, and so can you, if you have the courage to let this film touch your heart. If you do allow that, it will carress it. Peace, and God bless you. Always.