Die 19te Frau

Just a follow up to some of the other reviews. Location: there is a sect here in Canada and as others have said, the location/surroundings are incidental to the plot. The sect in Canada has been the subject of repeated investigations and even prosecutions, not to mention a coup. Hairstyles: the stylist got it spot on, that is exactly how the wives are required to wear their hair. The clothing was also correct. I am guessing the reviewers complaining about the hairstyles are not familiar with this religion. Where I live there are other religions that also have similar dress requirements though they are not polygamous, Amish, Mennonite.

I thought the movie handled the book really well - you can't fit all of a book into a 90 minute movie.

I have quite a bit of knowledge about the Mormon Church although my relatives are not from the fundamental branch. This is how life is run and how it is based on a money gathering men in charge society.

I have seen a few documentaries on the Canadian version of this and there is a lot of debate about how they use the social services system to collect money from the government that does not necessarily go to the women and children as intended so it was interesting to see a few digs at that.

Definitely worth a watch as a drama about a secluded life. If you are interested in the life try the book Educated by Tara Westover - fascinating and on a similar line.

BeckyLyn (Patricia Wettig) was the 19th Mormon wife of Sawyer Scott. She has been charged for his murder. Her son Jordan (Matt Czuchry) to returned to help her after being exiled from the Utah town as a boy. The film also looks back at Brigham Young's 19th wife, the one who divorced him.

The film rather wastes the talents of Wettig as she makes the most of the material she is given. The film is bland with a nasty two dimensional villain in the prophet. The editing is choppy. The film wants to be harsh about polygamy among the Mormons but is let down by being such as weak television mystery film.

A reviewer claimed details were invented for dramatic effect. Actually, abuse and terror are common in the most secretive clans. Self-proclaimed "prophets" assign who will marry, reassign "disobedient" men's wives and children to others, and claim dead men's wives and children. The threat of eternal and earthly retribution for disobedience was recorded by Joseph Smith in Section 132 of Doctrine and Covenants when he acknowledged "plural marriage," the bigamy he and his elders had secretly practiced for years. Even Ann Eliza Young's history is accurate.

With 30,000 to 50,000 polygamists scattered throughout the western U.S., many live in picturesque settings. St. George, UT, boasts resorts, agriculture, and mountain forests.

Jordan's sexual orientation wasn't changed for politics, as indicated by an article. Parameters are looser for novels than movies. Jordan's lifestyle would demand time to explain FLDS disapproval of gays and lesbians isn't about morality but the belief that men need at least three wives and numerous children to reach the highest level of heaven.

Viewers can learn about strict polygamous communities from "The 19th Wife."

This made for TV movie was interesting to watch but is so deeply flawed that I had to down-rate it severely. The first jarring note which remained an annoyance was the fatal choice of filming location. The movie takes place in fictional "Mesadale, Utah" a thinly disguised reference to the state line straddling Polygamist Mormon fundamentalist twin towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona. As anyone who has visited the vast region of the Southwest settled by Mormons can attest, it is arid with few trees. The 19th Wife was shot in Canada and features lush green forested landscape, whereas the real Mesadale/Hildale is brown and desert like.

The forbidding physical environment is an essential factor in Mormon existence. They were able to flourish over such a large area because the land was so harsh and undesirable. They had been driven out of all the nice places and found their refuge in areas other settlers didn't want or weren't willing to fight over. The isolation and clannishness is a key to understanding how such a bizarre and unbelievable belief system could flourish, so setting is vital to the story. A realistic bleak location would have highlighted the bleak, isolated lives of the sect members. Yes I know about the offshoot community in British Columbia, but that's another story.

The acting is the saving grace of this movie. The key players were able to establish and maintain believability and generally succeeded in showing the range of faith from the literal true believers through those who go along but have some reservations to those who reject the nonsense entirely. Chyler Leigh's performance was too much actor and too little character but Matt Czuchry, Patricia Wettig, and most of the others apparently studied their roles and did journeyman work. The glaring exception was the actress who played the teenage runaway working in a coffee shop. She is engaging and charming but blows the role or was misdirected. She could have been a kid from just about any suburb in America but not from an isolated fundamentalist polygamous community especially one who left only a month previous to her appearance in the story.

The final failure was the surprise ending. On reflection it didn't make much sense. The polygamist sect depicted is run as a patriarchy by the "Prophet." Loyalty is rewarded, disobedience is punished, and rivals are eliminated. In that context there was something lacking. I expect the book upon which this movie is based provided enough plot development to make the ending plausible if not inevitable. The movie did not: maybe it was lost on the cutting room floor or they left it up in Canada.

If you are fascinated by the topic, The 19th Wife is an entertaining way to spend a couple hours but I don't think low quality movie making like this should be encouraged.