The Keeping Room 2014

     The time period of this film is the conclusion of the Civil War during the Carolinas Campaign in the spring of 1865.  Augusta and Louise are living on their farm with their slave Mad.  They need to be constantly alert for both Union and Rebel soldiers coming to their home.  Louise is Augusta’s younger sister and a raccoon by the creek bites her.  She starts to get very sick and there is a chance the raccoon has rabies.  Augusta rides to the local store to see if they have any medicine.  There isn’t much left at the store except liquor but Moll gives her a poultice that might help.  That’s all they have to give her.  Augusta sees there are two Union soldiers drinking liquor at the bar.

      I thought the plot for this film was very thin.  It just seems a conveyance for gratuitous violence?  Women of any race were not respected during this time period.  Nothing historical is given about the sisters, only one story told by Mad.  Augusta knows how to ride a horse and she can shoot a gun as well as any man.  2 ½* (This movie is so-so)

95min, Drama directed by Daniel Barber with Brit Marling, Hailee Steinfeld, Sam Worthington, Muna Otaru, Kyle Soller, Ned Dennehy, Amy Nuttall, Nicholas Pinnock, Anna-Maria Nabirye, Luminita Fillimon.

Note:  Imdb 6.0 out of 10, 73% critic 49% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 2 1/2*, Amazon 3.7* out of 5* with 80 reviews

Special Note:  Filmed in Poienari of Arges County, Bucharest, Carpathain Mountains, Wallachia, Muntenia, Romania.  A keeping room is an area beside the kitchen.  The name dates back to Colonial times and families would sleep in this area when the rest of the house was cold.  Usually, the kitchen stove provided the only heated place in the house.  The screenplay is by Julia Hart and it was featured on the 2012 Black List of most liked unmade scripts of that year.  There is a novel with the same title published in 1999 by Anna Myers but it’s about the Americans at war with the British.