this movie should have be title trudge through snow and because that all i remember from it . thank goodness i saw it on video because i be able to fast forward through many of the trudge through snow scene . sometimes people be trudge and sometimes horse and sometimes horse and people but trudge and trudge and trudge . when any character go from one scene to another and the audience be force to watch the entire walk through the snow from build to build even if the building be mile apart . hey and i get it and there lot of snow there all right and give u a break . it seem to me that the movie want to prove to people that california be not just the beautiful and sunny and beachy place people think of and so it show u a comparison with the northern canadian rockies . i watch the whole thing because of the link with hardy mayor of casterbridge . both hardy and the movie portray a dark and negative story and but hardy seem more beautiful and more real to me . i know it wrong to compare the two and but if the filmmaker intend to make money use someone else material and then they should expect the comparison . kinski and mullan and jovovich do a decent job of act . pollan play the usual innocent look young teenager she always play boring . bentley seem a bit miscast . bentley play the role analogous to donald farfrae from the novel . farfrae have extreme charisma which arise from his good look and his magical singing of old ballad . bentley couldn not carry a tune in a bucket . bentley have none of farfrae charisma and which disappoint me and even though i know that the movie do not have to copy the book . the greasy hair and minimal makeup on the character give the movie more realism and but i keep feel the urge to throw all the actor into a bathtub and give the woman bobby pin with the order to either wear their hair down or pin it up all the way . the half pin up half straggly hairstyle that they all wear be annoy . instead of spending so much effort on create realistic stark scene and the filmmaker should have put more effort into create memorable character . i do not feel any empathy for any of the character and with the possible exception of the kinski character and and mullan character toward the end of the movie . jovovich decently portray a hardyesque survivor and though i felt that the director might have use her talent a bit well . by the way and the reviewer who post the plot summary at this site state that jovovich be the daughter and when it be actually pollan .