The Trail (2013)

the audience applauded

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Young housewife in the mid-1800's heads west with her husband who decides to leave the safety of their wagon train to strike out cross country alone. Wow is THAT dumb. Even dumber, he gets himself killed. He wasn't the only dummy - the Indians who killed him don't bother to look for any valuables in the wagon (where the wife is hiding under a blanket) - This story so out of touch with the times. Then the young wife is completely lost doing the simplest things that anyone in the nineteenth century would have had no trouble with - like using a flint and steel to start a cooking fire. I couldn't watch any more of this nonsense and deleted it from my Kindle.

Smart women will opt out of viewing this exceptionally demeaning portrayal of females unable to make wise choices in a crisis situation. Director has the female lead walking endlessly, wasting precious energy, never constructing so much as a simple 'lean to' or anything reasonable to save her life after she opts to leave the trail and wander aimlessly about in the snowy woodland.Male director shows the character in one scene in silly idleness playing a discarded piano she finds on her way or winding ribbon she discovers from a box around twos sticks to form a cross that she believes will be her salvation. Remarks the character utters are simultaneously comical and painfully sad. Character finds a man frozen by the plummeting temperatures. She borrows his boots, but leaves trousers, socks, hat and shirt behind. Character stumbles upon two or three rivers, but never beds down for more than a night, never attempts to spear fish or trap rabbits or small game, as Pioneer women would certainly have at least attempted. Story line follows character's pursuit with a Native American child in tow, wandering about the forest without clear direction. Her "strength" or resolve is to walk on under heavy snows without even a coat because of her "faith." If actual, she would have quickly succumbed to hypothermia.Utterly humiliating to women as yet another director defames historical women portraying all as needy, imbecilic, and desperate. Pioneer women in America that moved West with their families were quite intelligent, strong, and generally instructed how to make and maintain a campfire, find food, repair wagon wheel, mend injuries, and navigate toward safe places until warm weather arrived in the Spring. Preposterous and stupid. Audience becomes frustrated with the director by mid-film hoping that he'll have the sense to at least lend her an IQ above 50 for a minute or two. Viewers gasp at how idiotic the lead female character is made to seem. At one point, rather than spark a fire by striking two pieces of partially rusty metal she comes across in her wagon, she accidentally leaves her husband's glasses on a Bible in the sun - I stress accidentally after having them in her possession for a couple of days, which sets the pages on fire. I nearly clicked off the movie at this point.Somehow, later in the film, the character is able to start an unexplained fire with overcast skies for she and the "boy." Character often speaks down to the child, "Come boy!" as though he were a dog.Finally, I researched this film and it seems that there is another foreign film that was made in 2003 with the same title and the essence of story line. Hopefully, the director obtained permission from the writer to borrow his material. Happy to discover that Bill Graham ministries had nothing to do with this film.

This movie was excellent and I highly recommend it. There is a very good presentation of the main character's Christian faith helping her to survive. (Rare in this day to see Hollywood present an historically accurate Christian character as something other than a two dimensional caricature!) Whether you share her faith or not, you come away from this movie realizing how important faith and hope are to overcoming obstacles and surviving against the odds. It is important to suspend one's disbelief in the improbability of the events depicted and focus more on the message of the film. I suspect that the bad reviews are from folks that just "don't get it." This movie is one that is safe to watch with the family and one which you'll be discussing after it's over.

I really liked the pace and length of the movie. It wasn't too long - It didn't drag on and it wasn't so short that it left the main character underdeveloped. The ending was satisfying. Although I admit I found it odd at first that Amelia and the boy were able to sleep all night and wake up covered in snow, I think a lot of the negative reviewers have failed to see the religious/supernatural theme of the movie. It wasn't a documentary or some kind of trendy wilderness reality show. It was about faith and how a woman's spirituality helped her survive. Did you perhaps miss the ending (before the bible verse at the very end) when it was implied that the Indian boy had been an angelic being?