Far and Away (1992)

The second film Cruise made in the 1990s also happens to be his second film with his then-wife Nicole Kidman. Their status as newly-weds had a large impact on the film's production from the get-go, as it largely became a vehicle for the two of them to show off their relationship. While this movie aims to be a historical romance of epic proportions, the film's lack of exploration into topics like class and immigration and forgettable lead characters do little to create a lasting impact.

Far and Away is a 134 minute long historical drama about two Irish immigrants who travel to the United States in search of land. The two have different motivations: Joseph Donnelly, the son of an Irish peasant, vows to own his own land after the death of his father and an eviction ordered by his landlord, while Shannon Christie, daughter of said landlord, is a rebellious woman who simply wants to escape the suffocating expectations of her affluent life. After Joseph fails to kill Shannon's father, Shannon offers to take Joseph with her as a servant to the United States, as she cannot travel by herself as a woman. The end goal is to participate in the Land Run of 1893 in Oklahoma, where together, they can claim free land for their own.

Immediately, the story becomes a mess of contradictions and untouched plot lines. The central conflict of Far and Away starts interestingly enough, as it very clearly paints itself as a conflict of class interests. Joseph is one of many Irishmen who find their treatment by the wealthy landlords cruel and unfair to a point where they feel motivated to do something about it. But immediately, the potential for an insightful look into the interactions between socioecomonic status in late 19th century Ireland is ignored. Joseph's resentment morphs from one of vengeance to annoyance once Shannon's father exits the picture, and that annoyance seems to be more of a response to Shannon's personality and a refusal to acknowledge that he's attracted to her instead of her family connections.

But to be fair, there is an explanation for this within the film: namely, that someone who worked with Shannon's father was responsible for the eviction. It's not a good one, granted, but it is an explanation. And given the film's leads, and the general tendency for films to throw in heterosexual romances for the sake of it, I'll move pass this issue. Ultimately, it doesn't matter too much, anyway, as the central flaw of this movie rests in its portrayal of Irish immigration and what wasn't portrayed on screen.

The history of Irish-Americans and the way they were treated remains a bit contentious in the scheme of broader political debates. It is true that Irish immigrants were treated poorly compared to their more assimilated Anglo-Saxon counterparts, and this can be traced back to the history of English colonialism in Ireland. However, if this film was trying to portray the struggles two theoretical immigrants might have faced, it also unintentionally proved another crucial point in the way the Irish were ultimately treated in the grand scheme of racial hierarchies in the United States. That is, Joseph and Shannon, two newcomers, were able to get land stolen from indigenous peoples for free. The strip of land that white settlers ran to claim was referred to as the Unassigned Lands, called such as the Muscogee and Seminole tribes, both of which were forcibly relocated from the Southeast United States to Oklahoma, ceded land designated as Indian Territory to the US government.

This is never addressed once. In fact, there's a declaration that the Oklahoma territory is Joseph's destiny to claim. Nowhere do we hear or see any sign that indigenous tribes even exist, which only feeds back into the larger colonialist myth that America was (mostly) empty before Europeans arrived. With this in mind, I find the film as a whole frustrating, to say the least. Two glaring errors like this in addition to a bland romance leave a bad taste in my mouth.

If there's one thing that does really shine in this movie, it's Cruise's and Kidman's accents, although for the wrong reasons. Sources tell me that this film is a bit of a joke in Ireland because of how bad their accents are, although I can't confirm this as I'm not Irish. They're very exaggerated accents, cartoonishly so. While it's already goofy for Cruise to be using such an accent, it's even worse for Kidman, whose accent is simply inaccurate as a wealthy landowner in Ireland. This is something the vocal coach was aware of, but the correct, more English-sounding accent was ignored in favor of an educated Dublin accent to avoid confusing American viewers.

There's not much else to say about Cruise's or Kidman's performance, in truth. They're acceptable. Not great, not terrible, just forgettable, like the rest of this movie.

If there's anything I can recommend this movie for, it's for its meme-worthy potential. I'm a particular fan of quoting this scene.

Rating: 2.85/5 - March 15, 2020