Sunset Song (2016), directed by Terence Malick

A sweeping adaptation of what has been billed as the classic Scottish novel; Sunset Song doesn’t quite work as a film and would probably be better as a TV mini-series. Agyness Deyn is miscast as Chris; she has an expressive face but her acting abilities are tested beyond their capacity and she looks far too old for the part of a girl depicted from around the age of 15 to 22. One could say she is a woman of many Ys and not a few whys. The story is pretty grim, encompassing paternal brutality, marital rape, murder-suicide, attempted incest and to top it all off, World War 1. There is a brief pre-war period when Chris comes into her own and finds love and happiness, but the film soon descends once again into grim reality. The device of Chris narrating her own story, seemingly by reading chunks of the book, is clunky and annoying. Some of the dialogue is ludicrous and some of it incomprehensible. The use of music is unsubtle, although some of it is beautiful. The cinematography and costumes are lovely; the supporting cast is interesting, including Daniela Nardini as Chris’s mother. The film is too long and painfully slow; there are way too many long lingering shots of the land, of Chris’s face looking at the land and of the changing light on buildings and the land. We get it; the land endures where nothing else does. Chris represents the land and she endures. The message is heavy handed to the extreme.