Instead, I found a well-written, appealingly filmed, and very well-acted story that works on a number of levels. Yes, there's a love story at its heart, though hardly of the traditional sort. More than that, it's an exploration of the realities and economic necessities of life in a small, remote agricultural community - it takes place in the foothills of Alberta, Canada, but could just as well have taken place in any small farm town in North America - and of the intersection of cultures: Ukrainian and Scottish immigrants, Natives ("Indians"), and city folks learning to make a go of small-town farming life. Most of all, it's about the interconnected lives of a handful of people and how they and their relationships grow and change as a result of the unorthodox romance between the two central characters.
The cast is uniformly excellent; there are no weak performances. The beautiful, spare Alberta landscape is an important character in its own right. The score could perhaps be a bit better, but is at least unobtrusive and is enhanced by three k.d. lang songs. The only slight fault I found was with the ending, which I felt was perhaps just a bit more abrupt than it might have been, but that's a very small criticism within the greater scope of a movie that I loved and will doubtless watch again and again.
Very much recommended.
