"Legends of the Fall" (1994) - Movie Review

Lot of story tellers think that if a movie is narrated by a voice sullen and unattached, then it would be good catch to bring in the mood of neutrality in it. There will be no bias in telling the way it is. “The Legends of the Fall” is mostly narrated by the Native American One Stab (Gordon Tootoosis) or let us say if he speaks English his voice will be that which narrates the story. And providing neutrality to this story is no way important or relevant because the characters as such are so shallow and unreasonable. And it happens with all the characters in it and hence the neutrality is maintained to say how much it failed in every aspect and actions of it.
Edward Zwick, the director tries to tell an “epic” story of a family during the 1900’s. It is about Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins) and his three sons. Alfred (Aidan Quinn) followed by Tristan (Brad Pitt) and the youngest safe guarded Samuel (Henry Thomas). Every one loves Tristan starting from Colonel, One Stab, Decker (Paul Desmond), his wife Pet (Tantoo Cardinal) and the young thirteen year old Isabel Two (Christina Pickles). And the reason is unknown, although certain of it are clear. Tristan is the son of the wild. He is handsome and terrifically brave. So it gives out the reason for the ladies to be attracted instantaneously. His father may like him because he is a “man”. He has a hobby of his own, to abandon every one whenever he wants to and especially when the family needs him the most. When everything is over with all his loved ones losing hope on him coming back, he comes by as heroic as possible. He gives no explanation and finds some one or other to blossom his romantic life.

The story instantly ignites with plot when Samuel brings in his fiancée Susannah (Julia Ormond). Both Alfred and Tristan restrain themselves from approaching her since it would of course be truly wicked and insensitive to Samuel. For some strange reason Samuel is willing to go for war and hence the brothers go for it. Tristan goes to protect him. And when he fails in it, we can understand the fury, guilt and loss of his kid brother. I also understood his option of choosing solitude. Susannah in the mean while coping with the loss of Samuel is approached by Alfred. And she says yes instead of fleeing the home to not cause any more broken heart. So returns Tristan and without any hesitation she falls for him. There are no possible convictions of the characters at all. They do what they do without any hint of considering what will be the consequences of it.

So while accepting this complexity of them, we navigate into the story. Alfred does a good thing of leaving the town and hence we think all will be solved. But alas, Tristan goes crazy. The loneliness after his brother’s death does not help him. Without much of any explanation he flees. By this time, everyone is used to him fleeing without any clue of returning back. And when he comes back, they do not show why he comes back. There is no proper justification of his change of state. He aimlessly travels the remote parts of world and hunts. One more thing is that he never gets old. I cannot believe how come they did not even think about making Brad Pitt look aged. It is as if they need to convince themselves when he decides to marry the young Isabel all grown as twenty (Karina Lombard), it should not be awkward, but with nice sequences of chemistry in between the characters, age will be negated. So it entirely depends on how they portray it. They fail. And they do not explain why he falls in love with her either. She loves him, well as I said earlier - wild and of course he is Brad Pitt. At twenty that is good enough reason to marry I guess. Tristan should be around thirty or some thing, but he does not care about what he is doing exactly. I can accept all his actions if the screenplay paved some kind of possible explanation even in subtle manner to justify it.

The only guess I can take is somehow they wanted Tristan, aah no, by this time it is Brad Pitt and we do not think him as the character at all. Anyways Brad Pitt needs to get love in all possible manners and with that in mind, they started killing all of them. At the end of it, they realized that there is no reason and half the cast is dead. So they went back and found the commonality in all of the people who succumbed. They for no particular reason loved him, blindly. But there should be some kind of reasoning, so they make Susannah say to him that she wished Samuel and Isabel dead. How convenient? Now, I thought that a person with no explanation, conviction and consideration for others was being loved insanely and why? Alfred says the same that he followed man’s and god’s words which I doubt and Tristan did not and yet everybody loved him. And? He stops there and Tristan stares. Realizing their gap in the explanations, after finishing the screenplay, they went back and added whatever they thought is missing in one liner with further incompletion. Finally it is been said that Tristan lived to see other die. Yes, of course he did and he made sure that to witness all the poor soul of the viewers getting executed as well.