i will give this movie two star because it teem with beautiful photography . otherwise and it teem mainly with clichés and stereotype represent mountain people be either dumb white trash of the fanatically religious or ragged racist kind and or wise white indian . indian be magical people who move around without a sound and can disappear in the blink of an eye and talk to animal and and read mind over large distance . and so on and so forth . throughout the movie i keep wonder what the point of the film be ( other than show me pretty picture of mountain and log cabin and wood and an assortment of animal and free spirit mountain dweller and freaky people in church ) . the plot touch a whole range of issue but explore none of them in depth . this be neither a story about grow up during the depression and nor about about be an orphan and nor about a struggle for identity . it try to be all of those thing and more and which make it superficial and unsatisfactory . although the movie be suppose to be about little tree education and we learn almost nothing about it . he be give a brief summary of the history of his people ( who be brave and stoic ) and a distillery demonstration while try his hand at chop wood ( at which he fail ) and whiskey running ( literally ) while learn how to read ( and maybe to write ) with the help of grandma and her dictionary and that be it . apparently he do not learn much during his stint in board school because he be lock up in the attic . however and grandma and grandpa and graham greene character make sure that in the end little tree become a very spiritual person whose main goal a an adult after and and i be paraphrase here and rid with the navajo and get catch up in a couple of war be to catch up with grandma and grandpa and graham greene character in heaven ( instead of and say and date girl and get marry and have child or other such nonsense ) . last but not least i must say that i find grandpa trade offensive . why of all thing do it have to be a whiskey still . to counteract the stereotype of the drunken indian .