This is a great movie about a backwoodsman named Adam who goes into town to find him a woman to cook and clean and pick up after him and six brothers. He scours the town, sizing up the women he finds, but most of them don't meet his approval. Either they're too weak, or too old, or already married, but he eventually comes across Millie, a woman who works at inn, and she's out back chopping wood. After taking a look at her apparent durability and tasting her cooking, he asks her to marry him... but nothing flowery here, he straight out asks her if she wants to come out with him to live on his farm. He then practically explains to her that he would have properly wooed her, if there had been enough time, but he just didn't have the time. Millie is kind of taken with Adam however and looks right past his rough frankness, thinking that he's quite taken with her. She's also not very happy with her life at the inn, having the feed and pick up after a small army everyday. When she's taken home however, she finds out that's exactly what she signed on for. She's upset at first, but she really takes the boys to her heart and starts preparing them to find girls of their own... and as they're all rough backwoodsmen who've never been in a lady's presence for longer than a second, she has to teach them some manners. The boy's make an impression on several girls in town, but things don't go as planned and they all end up back on the farm with only themselves for company. Now that they've discovered love though, they're all miserable, and Adam is worried he'll lose them all. He hatches a plot to kidnap their lovers, but when he carries it out and brings them unwillingly back home, Millie is so furious that she kicks the men out of the house for the winter (as the pass back to the village is of course snowed in). Adam is miffed at Millie's anger and decides to hide away in some forest cabin for the winter, leaving the boys to fetch and carry for the girls, without actually being able to interact with any of them. As spring comes around, the girls seem to have more than forgiven the boys, and Millie seems to be pregnant. Will the boys and girls be able to be together when the girl's fathers catch up with them? And will Adam ever value Millie as his brothers seem to value their ladies? Watch the find out!!!
I love this movie. The plot and the songs might sound a little but chauvinistic, and it is, but unlike many films of the time, this chauvinism is contested. In fact the way Adam acts toward Millie is almost satirically overplayed as we watch and listen to him size up women to be his wife/ maid, as we hear him convince his brothers that it is ok to kidnap the girls by telling them about the rape of the sabine women, etc. Don't get me wrong, this was a reality in the past. This exact situation actually happened with members of my own family... and they actually had six other siblings, though one was female. The way Seven Brides presents the 'man first' attitude is to have it noticeably present, and have Millie noticeably resist it. Also, the brothers are all sweetly infatuated with their sweethearts of choice, and At the end, Adam and Millie's situation also takes a turn toward the better nearing the end of the story. To top it all off, the songs are great, and it's a musical about freaking lumberjacks! How often do you come across that!? It's a combination of one of the most 'girly' interests- musicals, and one of the most masculine personalities- lumberjacks/ backwoodsmen. If you like musicals, love stories, pioneering times, comedies, barn yard brawls, or just good film, this is a definite must watch.
This is a musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein about a young girl who falls in love with and marries a carousel barker.
The story opens up with a man, we'll assume he's an angel... he's dead that's for sure, and he's polishing some stars. Then the boss calls him into the office and they get to talking about his life, about whether or not he had any regrets or any unfinished business back on earth. He then begins to flashback to when he met his wife. The dead man's name was Billy Bigelow, and he made his living barking for carousels... that is standing in front of a carousel and bringing in customers, and on one night a pretty girl comes to the carousel, and he's quite taken with her. The owner of the carousel, an older woman with a bit of a thing for Billy, sees Billy's attraction and bans the girl, Julie, and her friend from the carousel. After Billy stands up for Julie, the carousel owner fires him, and Julie then chooses to leave her job (which fires female workers if they don't make curfew) to be with Billy, and the two of them get married. The story kind of goes downhill from here. Billy knows nothing else but barking and can't seem to find any work... and doesn't try very hard to get it either. The couple live off of Julie's cousin, and neither of them seem to be overly happy about their situation, Billy because he has nothing to do all day (not because he's a leech), and Julie because Billy is miserable... and sometimes takes it out on her. Billy starts becoming more and more elusive and angry as the days go by, to the point where he even beats Julie one night out of frustration. An old acquaintance seeks Billy out and tries to convince him to steal some money with him, but Billy isn't persuaded, until he learns that Julie is pregnant. Things don't go as planned, obviously, and Billy ends up dead. After telling his otherworldly warden this story, he is given the option to go back down to earth, and have the chance to help out the wife and baby daughter he left there. Will he go back, and if he does, will he be able to do anything to help the troubled family he left with nothing?!?!
This isn't my favourite Rodgers and Hammerstein, not by a long shot. Billy is a weak- willed, immature, good for nothing, lowlife who manages to catch the eye of pretty girl. He then proceeds to treat her poorly and leech off of her family members, rather than try to provide for her himself... and said after that he didn't mind it either. He's just an undesirable kind of man, cast in a romance and almost idealized... but watching this I couldn't feel that it was a love story. The guy didn't even want to see his own daughter because he thought she was in trouble... that's a good guy right there, someone who runs away from responsibility and challenges, even after death. And Julie was no better. She made more excuses for him than anything else, even after he beat her, which is only mentioned, we aren't shown that scene. I guess that was acceptable for the times, stand by your man and all... but grow a backbone.
Aside from that, movie wasn't wholly bad. Actually it was pretty good. The songs were pretty good and the storyline was alright if you're able to overlook the main characters' failings. The ending is also pretty sweet, and has a nice, 'don't let where you come from hold you back from where you're going' sentiment. Not a keeper, but worth a watch.
Katie is an 11-year-old girl living with her family in the States circa 1950. She lives with her mother, father, sister Lynn, and later, her brother Sammy. Her parents were born in Japan, and back in those days, visual minorities weren't as socially acceptable as they are today. Katie's parents have to work in chicken hatcheries, because in those days Japanese- Americans couldn't do much else in terms of employment. Her sister Lynn eventually shows signs of a strengthening sickness and the story deals with the family's poverty, and the struggles her sister's illness cause, both on an emotional and an economic level. The novel's title, kira-kira, means to sparkle in Japanese. Her very intelligent sister sometimes showed Katie how the world could be amazing, how certain things in life would have a kira-kira.
I wasn't really impressed with this story. It won a Newbery award so I was expecting something good, I didn't end up getting it. Katie was an average kid, with an average intelligence level, and average thoughts, and an average life... which made this story an average book for me. The author would constantly have Katie notice how intelligent other people around her were, how good other people were, or hint at how interesting other people's lives must be. As the author kept doing this throughout the novel, and didn't make Katie's life any more interesting, I began to wish she had told the story from a different perspective. This story could have had a lot to say and could have been very emotional. It takes place in a very interesting time, from the perspective of people who would have struggled at that time, and on top of that their family had a major tragedy. Even with all of this potential, it was still a struggle to keep picking the book up. The author didn't do a good job establishing a connection between the reader and the characters, and as a result I didn't care about what happened to any of them. I kind of wished their situation would keep getting worse, hoping that that would engage me.
At the end of the book Katie talks about the whole kira-kira philosophy of the book and I felt like the concept didn't have enough weight to be presented as though it was present throughout the entire book. The author didn't spend enough time developing that idea or tying it into the events in the book. There were a lot of depressing, unfortunate situations, but no sparkling outlook from Katie's perspective. Maybe in the eyes of another character this idea was more developed... but that really doesn't help the reader as we are only privy to Katie's thoughts.
The book wasn't bad by any means. I know my review is somewhat... completely bashing it, but it wasn't a bad book. It just wasn't what I associate with Newbery books, or great books in general. The story was an average kids book, and I'm sure some kids would enjoy reading it, but the book might not make it to anyone's favourites list any time soon.
