SnoopyStyle It's 1880 New Zealand. Victoria (Jodie Foster) is on trial. She recalls her journey to that point. As a baby, she was dropped off at an orphanage. Growing up at the orphanage, she is introduced to merchant Oliver Thompson (John Lithgow) who quickly proposes. She marries the stranger and discovers that he's a controlling, volatile creep. His father is more of the same but his brother George is much more sensitive.The first half is perfectly fine. It's got the bad husband and brutalized young wife. It builds to a tense climatic moment halfway through. It does struggle to maintain that intensity in the second half. There is some ambiguity to the plot which does not really help. It needs to be tightened. It probably should turn into a trial movie with flashbacks. Although Jodie Foster was still in her early 20s, the character needs to be a teen and the closing text reveals the inspiration to be the trial of a 19 year old wife. Her vulnerability would be heighten with a younger actress. The movie seems to be holding back which prevents it from being better.

Matt James Victoria (Jodie Foster), a foundling, is arrange-married to a New Zealand businessman with the romantic skills (and respect for women) of a Playboy club keyholder. By modern day standards Oliver Thompson (John Lithgow) is brutish, though not, it should be said, by the standards of the time. Victoria shows increasing regret at how things have turned out, amplified by developing feelings for Oliver's brother George (Dan Shor) who, whilst he's no Emmeline Pankhurst, does have the virtue of knowing where his heart is. We meet Thompson sr. (Harry Andrews) and it soon becomes clear where Oliver's idiosyncratic character got its template. Some more demonstrations of brutishness and Oliver's penchant for watching his wife through holes in a wall as she disrobes, a perversion that the demure Victoria finds unbearable. She decides to leg it to the US with George but they are discovered aboard ship and George gets accidentally clonked on the thinkbox with a candlestick. Oliver and his father smooth things over by simply sending his carcass to America without an explanatory note, or even, apparently, a moment's regret. Now in true bondage Victoria settles into the role of attentive wife, and she is so attentive that Oliver suddenly falls ill. Victoria begins to look extremely sinister (why is it that extraordinarily beautiful women can do the chilling psychopathic-slow-burn look so well?)Along comes the perplexed doctor Finch (Philip Holder) to save the day. But the doc's hippocratic oath is slipping as he admires Victoria's shapely ankles while Oliver attempts to speak, "Gwarhf! Phlurg! Flumsh!" In a scene not for the faint-hearted, the doc offers some typically Victorian bedside manner: "Please try to keep calm. I know that it hurts." Now, let's whip the rest of those pesky teeth out shall we? Mercifully the tortured Oliver soon checks out and is solemly buried, presumably with his teeth in his breast pocket in an envelope marked "Choppers".In the final scenes which bring us back to the point we came in, Victoria is on trial. The good doctor seems to vacillate between honouring his oath and failing to fend off the image of Victoria's dainty feet which is clearly burning a hole in his trousers. The gambit works and Victoria assumes her place in civilised society where we find George anxiously waiting for her.Substantively that's the story but there were some issues. The acting was passable though perhaps below the standard we have come to expect from the leading pair. At the time I think Jodie was having doubts about staying in the biz and this was one of several ducks in the years before "The Accused".The accents were all over the shop. I don't know why Victoria has a cut-glass English accent if she grew up in New Zealand unless the foundling home was staffed by ex Girton girls. (It was unclear to me if the foundling home was in NZ or Blighty) The Kiwi accent is a brave, if variable, try by John Lithgow but he sounds Australian as do other players who attempt to sound correct. To the educated ear, Kiwi and Aussie are vastly different accents.The music is very strange; eerie when it needn't be and absent when eerie would be appropriate. The editing is either deliberately bizarre else done between (or during) bouts of heavy drinking. These become less of an issue as the film progresses, hinting heavily at a tight deadline and/or a sudden shortage of whiskey. New Zealand is far more beautiful than this film portrays and the under-use of the location is a pity.It's not a film to be watched often, or indeed, twice. But it can faintly entertain the one time.

kc83 I hired this on DVD ,I had never heard of it and the cover told me nothing not even the year it was made. It was made in New Zealand,I can't believe Jodie Foster traveled there to make it. She had already made several movies including Taxi Driver and Hotel New Hampshire. I bet she is ashamed of it. The quality of the DVD didn't help,from a low budget video company in Australia. The story was boring as well. This has got to be the worst movie I have ever seen.I took it back to the video store and received a free hire of another film. I just found out Foster produced this film,and then bad mouthed it. The film quality is awful,I fast forwarded through a lot of the film.

morsdag We thought this movie was wonderful. Movie fans who think Jodie Foster too stoic etc.here might reflect on the character's upbringing. She was a teenager raised with a questionable amount of love given her. In the two places she lived as child and child bride it made sense for her to "mind" and to be careful of showing her true feelings.Bravo.PS The closing credits are accompanied with uncredited Maori singing. At least I couldn;t see the group's name in the credits.