The Keeping Room

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Beautifully shot, slow moving. The shifts of power between the characters kept me gripped, but I think a little more fleshing out of the characters might have done more for the film, over the long scenes. However, it did definitely get me teared up at the end. Would recommend to any fans of the western genre, although it has its differences.

Watched this without reading reviews and was pleasantly surprised. Acting is phenomenal, and the movie feels real to the 1865 era. All three lead female actresses were outstanding.

I'm not familiar with the source material, but it seems to be very important to some people and it seems to have made an impact on those who read it. As the filmmaker says herself (accompanied by the lead actress), this is a western unlike the ones we are used to see. It's not a showoff and it has female leads, who are strong yet fragile too. Some might call it feminist, with the a bad stigma, but that would not be a fair assessment. It has female leads as our heroes and there a lot of bad men in this too. But it has the quality to surpass that. And if you don't mind the slow pace this is a really gripping watch. It has it's moments/spikes of violence too, because it's all about survival ...

--but you haven't. Not by a long shot. Muna Otaru's lines alone are worth the entire time spent with this film. She plays a slave who is one of the strongest women of trust in God ever portrayed on the silver screen. Hailee Steinfeld, ultra-famous for playing the precocious youngster in the far superior remake of True Grit, appears in this so-called Western (we have no genre called Southern) as a whimpering, naive, arrogant older teenager--but, as with True Grit and her powerful bit part in The Homesman, she carries the film with equal power to Otaru and Brit Marling (whose wounded-and-crying scene is one of the most realistic I have ever seen). No, you have not seen this film done time and again. You have never seen this story, which reveals the realities of war that we all too often set aside as battlefield anomalies but which, in truth, are always part and parcel of any conflict between two opposing armies. I, for one, would love to see Steinfeld quit the sappy glossy music industry and concentrate all of her talent on making films like this one--or making films in general. She's just so much better at it.

Three women left alone in the South of the United States by the end of the Civil War, doesn't it sound familiar to you? For me, certainly yes. I thought of Don Siegel's THE BEGUILED, shot in 1970 and starring Clint Eastwood. For the rest, except this setting, the story is a little different and also the acting and directing. This movie has not been released in France and I understand why, although it is unfair, because more obscure films are shown in theatres in Paris. But this feature is not for wide audiences, especially with unknown actors and actresses. And the story so rough and brutal too. Anyway, I was Lucky enough to find the DVD, and I don't regret it. We can also class this film as a Home Invading one, a scheme so common since a decade now. A very good independent movie which I highly recommend.

I like this movie and i'm surprised some feel differently towards it. It was cool to see the war coming from a woman's perspective and show the horrors of the woman trying to defend their home and themselves. It showed how at the end of the Civil War that it was violent and it also showed women didn't have much respect. We noticed that it showed not only the woman's perspective but the man's as well. Many could say they view this movie differently but I viewed it as showing how strong women were in this time period and to show the destruction the Civil War caused. I personally recommend this movie for learning purposes as well as to get an insight on the different perspectives of the Civil War.