She Was the Deputy's Wife

Notice to future myself: Watching mushrooms growing would be more interesting.

Really enjoyed this western. It has an unusual plot line for a western more reminiscent of a Shakespeare story. The basic story is about a women who feels trapped in her life and marriage until she meets a young horse thief. She falls for him whilst helping out at his brother-in-laws ranch where he is hiding horses that he has stolen. The women is enamoured by one of the horses, a white mare, not because of the horse itself but because of the lost freedom the horse represents.

The main part of the story revolves around an unscrupulous marshal who wants the white mare for himself and he is willing to do anything to get it.

The film is apparently part of a series of 12 films although I have been able to locate any of the other 11 so far.

Definitely a film to watch as long as you are not after a shoot-them-up cowboy film.

The film is well shot, with a good story and good acting. The problem is twofold though. The pace of the story is just too slow and the score is mundane and depressing. Mills' directing looks good, and the cinematography is very good, but maybe it's the way the film was edited that creates the slow pace. There's really no excuse for the poor score. If you watch any good western from any era, the score really adds to all of them. Mill's has made a number of really solid westerns recently and they all seem to have these two unfortunate flaws that keep them from really reaching the next level. If you're a western fan, give it a watch, but know it's flawed.

I liked the way the main character went back in time and told how she got to the present. Good story!

Well, from the movie's cover/poster, then I have to say that I didn't figure that I would be in for anything particularly extraordinary since the cover looked like something that was made in an Arts & Crafts class. And never having heard about "She Was the Deputy's Wife", from writers Mario Mattei and Travis Mills, I must admit that I didn't harbor much of any expectations.

So why watch it? Well, on the off chance that the movie would actually turn out to be good, entertaining, watchable or surprising, of course. Well, and also because "She Was the Deputy's Wife" was a movie that I hadn't already seen before.

But I have to say that the movie was just rather slow paced, almost to the brink of where it slipped over the edge and became boring. The concept idea of the story was good enough, but the movie just lacked forward momentum, action and interesting characters to carry it forward.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in "She Was the Deputy's Wife", but I will say that the actors and actresses did fair enough jobs, given the restrictions of a slow paced narrative and not really having much to work with in terms of properly written characters and dialogue.

I will say that the atmosphere in the movie was actually good enough, it felt and looked like a Western movie, at least.

If you enjoy Western movies, then perhaps you will get a little kick out of watching the 2021 movie "She Was the Deputy's Wife". I am not overly keen on the Western genre, so I didn't particularly enjoy this movie from director Travis Mills. Sure, it was semi-watchable, but that was about all it had to offer for me.

My rating of "She Was the Deputy's Wife" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.