Well, I wanted to like this more than I did...there was beautiful photography, painstaking period detail, some good actors (Janet McTeer and Aidan Quinn among them) and an interesting comparison between the scummy mine flunky taking land from people who are starving, and her taking their songs...

But. The plot elements are so predictable...the woman wronged by her husband, the pregnant woman who can't feed the kids she has now, the graphic childbirth scene, the lesbian lovers who are [gasp] FOUND OUT (as if they'd be making out in the woods, give me a break! at that time they'd be WAY more careful than that), the gruff guy whom the professor falls in love with, the young girl whose guy Does Her Wrong, nothing really different from a million other movies about this kind of society.

But the music and the songs are excellent. Yes, we've heard most of the ballads in this movie before; heck, most of them are on the Joan Baez Ballad Book double album (yes, I thought you still had that in your collection, just like I do!)...but they're well done, pure and beautiful, and the people playing the parts can really really sing.

You know what I'd say? The heck with the movie, get the soundtrack CD, it's gotta be WAY better than having the plot interrupt all that lovely music.