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While other filmmakers this season have filled their dramas with angst, anger, and a bleak sense of determinism, Jim Sheridan has given us one that stares the scary questions in the face, admits that it cannot answer all of them, and yet offers glimmers of hope and a generous helping of uplifting humor.

Next week, Film Forum will offer links to the responses of other religious press critics. (At this writing, none have been posted.)

Meanwhile, mainstream critics are greeting the film with rave reviews. Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times) says, "It's not the typical story of turn-of-the-century immigrants facing prejudice and struggle, but a modern story … involving new sets of problems, such as racism and the drug addiction in the building and the neighborhood. It is also about the way poverty humiliates those who have always prided themselves on being able to cope. [The film] is perceptive about the countless ways in which it is hard to be poor and a stranger in a new land."

Critics say Ron Howard's western is Missing something

Director Ron Howard moves from his Oscar-winning drama A Beautiful Mind to a Western in the tradition of John Ford. Like Ford's classic John Wayne film The Searchers, The Missing boasts breathtaking cinematography as its desperate heroes—a terror-stricken mother, her willful young daughter, and a troubled old man—pursue a band of Apache villains who have kidnapped a teenage girl.

Cate Blanchett, who had one leading role already this year (Veronica Guerin) and who reprises her role as Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King this month, plays Magdalena "Maggie" Gilkenson here. Maggie is known in 1880's New Mexico as a healer and a rancher, raising young Lily (Evan Rachel Wood of Thirteen) and Dot (Jenna Boyd), and harboring private wounds about her past. When a mysterious silver-haired man named Samuel (Tommy Lee Jones) shows up on Maggie's ranch, he forces Maggie to reconsider and wrestle with her past. Soon after she has denied him permission to stay there, she finds herself in need of his help. A man is murdered, and Lily is taken captive. Samuel knows how to track Apaches, and since the U.S. military proves of little use to them, Maggie finds herself with no choice but to bring him along. Thus, they head out on a seemingly doomed rescue mission.

Blanchett immerses herself in the role, as she always does, proving again why she is the most formidable actress to reach the screen since Meryl Streep. She plays Maggie perfectly, from her accent to her resilience and physical fragility. Jones delivers one of his most understated and nuanced performances as well, and the young actresses are convincing as their characters suffer violence and horror.

Unfortunately, despite gorgeous scenery and an uncharacteristically subtle soundtrack from James Horner, the film has a "been-there, done-that" quality that keeps it from becoming an original or compelling adventure. Howard and company present the violence with uncompromising intensity, but they play it safe when the story strays into controversial territory. While the Native Americans who help Maggie employ a good deal of voodoo and traditional "medicine," Maggie persists in her prayers and dependence on God. Howard and his screenwriter Ken Kaufman, adapting Thomas Eidson's novel The Last Ride, shy away from the conflict between the two faiths, as if too concerned that they might offend somebody. Thus, the overall implication is that faith of any kind, so long as it is offered with sincerity, will get results.

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December (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47