jeanninec1 OK, I agree...this movie had a lot of inaccuracies. However, it did a much better job than the series in portraying Laura's adult life. At least she was in Dakota, and not in Walnut Grove, which the Ingalls left when Laura was about 13. And I agree 100% that Laura should have been brunette. Also, the books do a much better job showing her struggle to be a "proper" lady than this movie, in which Laura seems to run wild.BUT...for those of you looking for Nellie -- the producers were correct, she shouldn't be in De Smet! Nellie was her nemesis in Walnut Grove, MN, as portrayed in "On the Banks of Plum Creek". This movie portrays her years in Dakota Territory, which start with "By the Shores of Silver Lake", then the years of "The Long Winter", "Little Town on the Prairie", "These Happy Golden Years", and "The First Four Years". No Nellie in any of those books.

mswritesalot I stumbled across this film on the satellite grid tonight, and was interested because I grew up reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. What a pity that the writer of this script never so much as lifted the cover of one of Wilder's books. There is far more factual information to be found on the Wikipedia site than in this film. I watched through to the end, but I made it only by pretending that this was not a film about Laura Ingalls Wilder. The little girl who portrayed young Rose gave a good performance, but everyone else left me cold. I heartily recommend that LIW fans avoid this film.

TheNovelist Okay, this movie was absolutely horrible. I am a very loyal Laura Ingalls Wilder fan and I have read biographies about her and believe me almost NONE of this was factual. First off, Laura Ingalls Wilder was an obvious brunette and it was pointed out in almost every book. Even though she did not like some of the customs of ladies, she still followed those customs. Like, she even put her hair up! Plus, she was no where near ditzy. She was smart and sincere and very honest. Honestly, if I was going to make a movie based on this wonderful woman's life, I would be as loyal to it as possible! Another thing, Laura and Almanzo lost their second child about a few weeks after he was born, he was not stillborn. Furthermore, she did not have a passion for writing until she was much older. And the girls who played Laura's sisters were underplayed and her parents were not loveable like they were in the book. Laura did not truly love Almanzo Wilder until they became engaged actually. She liked him and admired him but she did not actually love him until they were engaged. Obviously the makers of this movie took some creative liberties with this movie, and I did not like them. Don't waste your time seeing this movie.

bab2 As an avid Laura Ingalls Wilder fan for many years, I really looked forward to this "true story". Within minutes I was deflated. While some of the performances were good, I could not believe how the writers took license with the real facts; it makes one wonder if they ever read any of Laura's books.Setting the tone for the distortion was the incident depicting Pa and Laura coming across a house under construction where Laura finds an envelope marked "Almanzo" in the pocket of a man's coat and proceeds to dreamily repeat his name. This incident was not only schmaltzy, but totally fictional. In "The Long Winter," Laura describes her first encounter with Almanzo, but does not mention him by name. She was 14 (he was 10 years her senior) when she and Carrie became lost in the Big Slough and accidentally stumbled into his hayfield. Later in the same book Laura describes the horrid blizzard season and tells of Almanzo's and Cap Garland's brave quest for the wheat; however, the depiction of the exchange of romantic looks between them upon his return is again inaccurate. Almanzo did not seriously show an interest in her for another couple of years, which she describes in "Little Town on the Prairie" and "These Happy Golden Years."I also had a problem with Laura being presented as a blonde. Throughout her books she mentions her envy of her sister Mary's beautiful golden hair while disparaging her own plain brown locks. Yet the producers chose to make Mary a redhead in addition to changing Laura's hair. While on the subject of hair, I doubt that Laura went around most of the time with her hair hanging loose and unkempt. While she was inwardly in many ways a free spirit, she still adhered to the way young ladies were expected to appear in that era; in fact, she describes in her books the painstaking efforts to use the curling iron and cutting bangs to make her appear more stylish.It was also disappointing that the makers of this film did not focus on the uniqueness of the relationships among the entire Ingalls family, which again Laura described so lovingly. Instead they chose to depict a sharp altercation between Ma and Pa about moving West again. The writers should have placed more emphasis on the closeness between Laura and Mary, especially after Mary became blind, and also on how well Mary did after attending a college for the blind; she, too, was a special person.If the producers of this film had enough respect for Laura to want to tell her story, then they should have respected what she wrote. Their choosing not to do so smacks of commercialism. Perhaps they could not believe that such good (though not "goody goodies") people actually existed and that the viewers would not care to watch. Then why bother?