Customer Reviews

Follow the River

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is a great survival flick - and it really happened! Sheryl Lee is excellent as the proud, tenatious pregnant survivor of an Indian raid. Eric Schweig provides more than enough screen chemistry as her also proud, interested Indian suitor. If you liked Last of the Mohecans, see this true story.

I saw this movie and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have also read the book which I could not put down. Even though the movie did not follow the book as closely as it could have it was still worth watching just to see hottie Eric Schweig!! This movie (and book) are even more impacting if you have been to the New River Gorge and have seen what she traveled through. I highly recommend that everyone see this enchanting true story of Mary Ingles' plight as she returned home.

This was a romanticized version of the book. Wish it had stayed true to the true story.

If you have read the book you will not want to see this movie as you will be disappointed as I was. Very little content followed the book and worse yet it made Mary Ingles 800+ mile journey home look like a short hike in the woods. Her journey home is a remarkable story of human endurance and determination but you would never have any idea of what she and the old Dutch woman actually endured by watching this movie. It's a great injustice to a very remarkable and true story. As another reviewer stated "Bland at best". Not recommended.

What a watered down, sugar coated telling of this powerful story! The enormity of the physical struggle to walk 6 weeks in the wilderness was portrayed with slightly mussed hair (with a few twigs thrown in) and a spotlessly clean blue frock with ruffled sleeves. In the book, Mary was reduced to stark nakedness and her hair had turned white. This was a very poor rendition of the book and it must surely be an embarassment to the author. The sugar-coated ending with the chief returning the perfectly intact children was the final straw. Arrrgh!

Although it does stir up memories of being forced to watch Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman & flicks like The Last of the Mochicans, this true story turned out to be just a good old fashion tale of survival and ultimate triumpth. I purchased this movie solely to see my favorite actress Renee O'Connor ("Gabrielle" from the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess) play the wounded shaky sister of pregnant, focused and utterly BRAVE Mary Ingles, both women victims of an new America Indian raid, forced to travel some 800 miles uphill with their devoted male counterparts searching for them not far behind. Eric Schweig plays a toned & interesting Indian who pursues and admires the strong minded Mary Ingles; Renee O'Connor shines as her younger and not so certain sister, Betty, who, in my opinion, totally MAKES this movie by bringing her usual unsurpassed charmisa and emotional charm to tie in any loose ends.

My only complaints: the 800 mile travel was sort of uneventful and slow and some of the survival tactics they used were like "yeah right..."

A Hallmark Hall of Fame production, this made for TV movie has about as much true emotion as a typical Hallmark card.

The Indians are not frightening. The women, after being prisoners on the trail for days, look like they had just stepped from the shower in fresh clothes. They mostly happily smile at each other, except during the requisite Emotional Outbursts and Tellings Off. The escape lacks even a modicum of tension. The whole film drips Sincerity.

Eric Schweig, a good actor, is wasted.

The best that this film has going for it is that it is inoffensive. Just like a Hallmark card.

Maybe the book will be better.

This was a horrible movie! If you believe what you see on Dr.Quinn, you'll love it. If you know better however, you will be very disappointed, as I was. Sheryl Lee overacted her way all through this film. I pity Eric Schweig having to share the screen with her. However, Schweig remains the only true reason to bare out this film. While his acting talents were hardly tapped by this "The Olson Twins Survive an Indian Raid" type script, he was the most believable character. This story, like Schweig, has so much potential in a film medium. Too bad Hallmark did this with it instead.

The novel, "Follow the River", was based on a true story, and this film is based on that novel.

I read the true story in the book:
"Shawnee Captive: The Story of Mary Draper Ingles" or
"The Long Journey Home: The true story of Mary Draper Ingles"
(Available elsewhere for less money than here).

This film changed the truth just enough to ruin an interesting, true, story. The film is scenic and holds your attention. The men in the story are hapless and helpless.

How many women, in their ninth month of pregnancy, could hike through the forest all day, for days, on short food rations, stop to give birth while leaning against a tree, then immediately start hiking again all day, carrying their baby? A woman wrote the script! Might women benefit from walking all day during pregnancy and right up to giving birth? Is lying in bed really the best way to give birth? Should husbands buy the DVD and book for their complaining pregnant wives? Or was this mindless script-writing? If you click on the comment-button, below, I tell whether such events are true or not.

We are also left wondering whether the very end is true or not.

This film would have been much better, if it had stayed with the key points of truth. You can add things to a true story that do not change the key points of truth. You can add new characters to give more personality whose actions do not effect the key points of truth. You can leave out the uninteresting. You can fill in the gaps and imagine things with historical accuracy without changing the key points of truth. The film, "The Ten Commandments" is a good example; it fills in the gaps of the Biblical story well, and imagines pharaoh's palace, without changing the key points of truth of the Bible's story.

All would have enjoyed more details on how they lived at the time. It is mystifying, that the film's woman writer presented Mary as less smart, than Mary was in the true story. The film portrays Mary not planning and not stocking food for the escape.

If you hit the comment button below, you will see truth separated from fiction in this film, and see the story's true ending. You will see the film changed key points of truth that they should not have changed, which made the film into fiction and impossible as presented (the women taking turns with one blanket in winter). The film also left out the interesting truth. Doing the extra work to find out the truth would have made a much better film.

This film should be re-made, sticking to the truth, under the title of the true story.

Mary Ingles had great courage to survie in the situation that she was in. This movie shows how she used her talents for her survival instead of fighting against the indians and when the opertunity was right she escaped. I recomend this movie to everyone.