I was prepared to sit back and enjoy a good movie when I watched "Days of Heaven" last night. I admit that the setting was very beautiful, undulating, expansive, and more. The mansion in the middle of thousands of acres of wheat fields was an impressive touch. The problem was with the plot and the acting. I admit that my mild hearing loss may have robbed me of a sentence of two of dialogue here (hear?) and there. However, I had to check the liner notes on the DVD case to reassure myself that the man and the woman were supposed to be traveling together incognito as brother and sister to help in their escape from a murder in Chicago. Their relationship never really developed into anything coherent during the movie even allowing for their intential misrepresentation. Her relationship with the young landowner was a better developed relationship.



The director used a juvenile as a sort of narrator throughout the film. I had a hard time hearing much of what she said and I came away thinking that it was a gimic that didn't work. As a matter of fact, her character was rather unnecessary to the movie, in my opinion. There were times in the movie where the work being done was alternately instructive and ridiculous. I'm reminded of one scene where Richard Gere seems deeply involved with the seriousness of his job as he takes a bundle of cut wheat and moves it from one pile to another one three feet away. There is a scene of disaster that made me wish for the better rendition from "The Good Earth". The ending is akward but, in keeping with the film's strong point, leads us through another cinematic scene of nature's beauty.