Love Comes Softly (2003)

Beautiful, moving film.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The film is a good one as it deals with a new theme in a very serious way. The theme being that people, who have lost their mates, marry at once, to provide for surviving children and to ease their loneliness.We saw such sociological occurrences after the Holocaust when lonely survivors in displacement camps wed within 30 days of meeting one another.This film is a salute to the men and women of the 1880s in the west. Through hard work and relentless courage, they were able to survive the vicissitudes of nature.No, this film is not Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman but it's an earnest attempt to bring the struggles of the period down to a very personal level.While stunned by the tragic loss of her young husband, I found Katherine Heigl's performance here to be lacking. She needed more of a breakout in her role as the film went on. Only during the last 2 frames do we see a remote resemblance of that. Throughout the film, she seems to be just saying her lines without evoking any emotion whatsoever.Midkiff is better here; although, there are some parts where I thought he was trying another form of Elmer Gantry.As a whole, the film should be praised to its undertaking of difficult subject matter.

I don't read books much so I didn't know this movie was even a series let alone a book first. With that said, I watched the first of the series today, Love Comes Softly. After I watched the movie I sat and cried for about 10 minutes. Then I began to make dinner not realizing there was a part 2 which I thought was part 2. I was leaving so I hurried around and recorded the movie. When I got back from town I noticed there was yet another one coming on after the 2nd one was over. I was so overwhelmed I started watching it from there. I quickly got on line and found out that there are 6 parts to this series. This is the BEST series I've seen in forever and now I'm ready to go out and buy the books. Let me tell you the movie is addicting!!! I give it a full 10 and a must see!!!

About half a lifetime ago, I was much impressed by a book & documentary about grief & death by a lady named Kubler-Ross. Though long deceased, she made a great deal of sense in her insightful & wise comments! A few years ago, on a web-site about prayers for the grieving, I found a beautiful comment from a widow who clearly loved her deceased husband, from her heart!!! She wrote of her lover a comment like "with every breath, I am brought one breath closer to you!" This movie, "Love Comes Softly", is a welcomed surprise I'd never previously heard of, that brought me closer to God & man or woman!!! … But selectively!!! For that is how it comes, softly, be it a lover downtrodden by circumstance, or a lover emerging out of the wilderness! Layers of necessity!!! It could have been a typical cowboy western I generally don't like, but "Love Comes Softly" brought the 'wild west' alive without bloodshed! But not without portraying the hardships of the portrayed or the downtrodden in their circumstance - lover, lover, beloved daughter, even creature or incidental character, not oblivious to the perspectives of the grief-striken or their loosely connected dimensions of further wisdom! Beyond that, this movie did it with LOVE!!! Fairness & justice & trust & truth were its integrity!!!Bravery & love were at its heart early on! Friendship & despair & desperate prayer but still LOVE were at its core later on! I am disturbed though at the narrowminded contributions in some reviews, that I none the less generally approved of & supported with my votes in their favour with reservations. Yet their conclusions seemed to be as if public decency & Christianity are to be only for narrowminded puritans! To them it seems, sex & violence are necessarily EVIL words in movies! Do not be discouraged from this fine movie on such comments! I am a Christian!!! I LOVE Jesus & His integrity!!! I love God as Creator!!! I love the concept of the Holy Spirit - dynamic in His role – across time & place - though I have OFTEN seen Him abused by supposed 'faithful' in church!!! As if the critics have never heard of "The Good Samaritan" robbed & unjustly passed by, via those who surely should have cared, or an old lady who gave all of her wealth in a couple of insignificant coins in the eyes of others watching, or the "Gentile" woman by the well Jesus loved, or heard the prayers of the man seeking forgiveness as against a proud rabbi in the same temple!!! So I despise hierarchies of bigoted snakes wherever they are found!!! Too often, sadly, among supposed 'Christians'! I found NONE of that in this beautiful movie!!!I haven't read the book! I don't know if it is good or better than this cinematic portrayal some viewers have accordingly taken exception to! I do know this tele-movie is touching & inspiring & worthy of WHOLEHEARTED recommendation for those who have eyes to see & ears to hear, whether they are "family" or "born again" or not!!! The "wild west" is CERTAINLY NOT the only place where the truer message of this superb movie was / is / will be NEEDED!!! But this movie is a good place to start!!!!

I respect and admire Dale Midkiff very much. I have seen a lot of his movies but this one really moved me. He was so kind, patient and played his charicter so well. I especially loved this movie because it was a family movie you didn't have to be afraid to watch for the bad language.He is a great actor and highly under rated. I would love to see his movies begin to take a turn for the better and prayer that he will get the recognition he deserves. I think if he start getting some roles in better movies this will happen for him. Besides his incredible good looks can't hurt, as a matter of fact I'm surprised he isn't at the top already due to his looks and magnetic personality!