The Keeping Room: Bis zur letzten Kugel

A thinly plotted , mainly slow but often tense Civil War piece with three fine lead performances and a good rather different one from Sam Worthington. An interesting take on what happens when law breaks down in a soon to be defeated land.

There's a merit on doing all female leads drama thriller set on volatile era of Civil War, especially when there's social prejudice involved. However, aside from some admittedly fine performance, the movie feels clunky and slow. It doesn't have the intricacy or characterization beyond the basic formula of "there are bad men coming", and even that takes the film about half its runtime to get the pace going.

This is the story of three women, one of whom is colored, as they defend their home from outsiders. Each woman might not be easily relatable at first, but the acting as well as decent investment time to them manage to deliver a few heavy thought provoking and intimate scenes. Brit Marling as the oldest one keeps a strong presence even though her character may be lacking in term of actual strength.

Muna Otaru as Mad, the colored housekeeper or technical maid, has a unique personality as the caretaker of the girls and also her own woman. As for the antagonist Sam Worthington makes do, he's decent but his motivation doesn't have the same focus as the girls', which means less connection to the character as he basically stumbles on the predicament he himself creates. The cinematography works by keeping an intentionally bleak and less stylish version of Wild West.

This is a deliberate pace for drama, not action or thriller. It does feel terribly slow at times, not in a good Tarantino build up style. Furthermore, there's not much cat-and-mouse cerebral standoff, which feels like a missed opportunity, especially when it could've used the setting as intense backdrop. Panic Room with Jodie Foster had trade of wit between protagonist and antagonist that created depth and utilized its premise, while here it's more of random gunslinging action.

The Keeping Room has a couple of good performances, especially geared towards heavy themes such as race prejudice and violence towards women. However, instead of putting more focus on home invasion to elevate the drama, its slow pace removes any thrill to what could've been a powerful commentary of an era and its lingering issues.

I am surprised to see that some people do not like this movie. May be they did not get the message this movie is sending. First , this movie wants to give you the sense of the violence and rampage that some stray Union soldiers conducted during the U.S. civil war which has seldom been reported in history. Second , it wants to show you the hardship and misery of those days' women who were left alone , to live and survive by themselves , when their husbands left for war. Third , it wants to convey this message to women , based on movie's currents of events , that , if they are united, resilient and determine, they then can overcome and survive the worst threats. Fourth , it tells women that they must learn everything they need to learn to defend themselves , that is , how to fight , how to shoot , how to plan against intruders and how to rely on themselves to survive. It tells them how to believe in themselves in that they can overcome dangerous situations during the coarse of their lives. I believe the director and scenario writer have done a superb job in conveying this message to its viewers.

The Keeping Room follows three women who are left alone on a plantation in the south near the end of the American Civil War. While these women are just trying to survive, they are put to the test when two rouge union soldiers. The result is an eerie, heartbreaking, and thought-provoking film about a group of people that we don't think about in history, women of the south. The film also does a good job of showing the dark side of the Union Army. Near the end of the war the union army had the attitude, "War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over. - William Tecumseh Sherman, Union Army General. Thus the burning and looting of southern plantations. While at the same time, this film doesn't glorify the confederacy. Instead, this film is about a small group of characters caught in a bad situation. Also, this film has some amazing performances from Hailee Steinfeld and Sam Worthington. I've always thought Sam Worthington is an underrated actor, and he is amazing as this film's villain. Hailee Steinfeld's performance simply fantasist. Even though she is only a kid, she is by far the best actor in this film, which goes to show just how talented she is. I wasn't as impressed with Brit Marling, but this could be because I found her character underwhelming. This movie isn't for everyone as there are some dark scenes. However, if you have the stomach for it, I'd recommend seeking it out.

The American Civil War is a time period that's been told almost exclusively from the male perspective and has most often centered on Northerners (winners do write history), so to see a story about southern women enduring the brutality of the war's end is rather surprising. What makes it satisfying, and a truly excellent film, is how sharp the storytelling is. Writer Julia Hart uses the small story of three women, two sisters (Brit Marling and Hailee Steinfeld) and their young slave (Muna Otaru), to capture the massive effects the war had on the southern way of life, but never hits you over the head with its larger themes. Instead, it tells its story almost as a home- invasion thriller, with a slow-burning sense of dread filling every ounce of the runtime. Bleak, tense, and at times difficult to watch, The Keeping Room isn't fun, but you'll be happy you saw it.