This is an excellent film in which both the casting and the sets are incredibly accurate. It was filmed in the area of South Missouri (near Forsythe) in which it was set, and many of the actors are local people. I am a Missourian, like Ree Dolly, and the speech and mannerisms are accurate and believable. The film is based on a novel of the same name and the director has successfully tried to follow the story very closely. The disc includes a narration by the director which describes in detail how the film was made.
The family relationships among the people are complicated of the love/hate type, made murkier by a moral code that goes back to the days of the Redlegs and the Civil War and the moonshiner culture that followed and you wonder how there could ever be a happy ending.
It is a very good combination of a detective story, a sociological study of a backwoods mountain culture and several character studies. There is not one performance by anyone in this film that is not excellent and true to form. Most of the actors are local people, and their faces are as non-Hollywood as I have seen in any American made film. When the characters speak, you sense that no one is entirely sincere, that everyone is thinking carefully about every word they say and every word they hear.
There is not one thing about this film that could be changed to make it better.
