I wondered how they were going to pack all of Roberts' truly great 'Montana Sky' into two hours. Sad to say, they couldn't.
The basic premise packed three relationships, four, counting the sisters themselves, over a year's time, along with all the mysterious happenings within that period. Only the barest of bones of the story were touched on and even those were rewritten and reworked. Other than the names of the characters, hardly anything, including the events, how they unfolded, and how they were resolved, resembled the original story.
As to the actors: Both Laura Mennell as 'Lila' and Charlotte Ross as 'Tess' fit the concept I had of them, but although Ashely Williams did a wonderful job, I couldn't see her as the 'Willa' I imagined in the book. I so adore John Corbett, he was one of the reasons I looked forward to the movie. He had the perfect personality for 'Ben', though in real life he's a good ten years or more older than the character he portrayed. I guess it made sense that 'Nate's' occupation was changed from lawyer to sheriff and Aaron Pearl was good in the re-scripted role. Nathaniel Arcand played a convincing 'Adam'.
I couldn't help but think as I read 'Montana Sky', then watched it, that the novel would have been much better adapted to a mini-series. It would have allowed the characters and the events to be fleshed out and evolve as they deserved. In comparison, Angels Fall made a much better transition from book to screen in that it didn't have as much ground to cover and could afford to have some parts dropped without losing the essence of the story.
