The defence The Prestige Tourist
“Form is the argument.”
Every composed frame and deliberate cut is evidence that control can be thrilling in its own right.
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The Keeping Room
Western · Drama · Thriller · 2014
In this radically reimagined American Western set towards the end of the Civil War, Southerner Augusta encounters two renegade, drunken soldiers who are on a mission of pillage and violence. After escaping an attempted assault, Augusta races back to the isolated farmhouse that she shares with her sister Louise and their female slave Mad. When the pair of soldiers track Augusta down intent on exacting revenge, the trio of women are forced to take up arms to fend off their assailants, finding ways to resourcefully defend their home––and themselves––as the escalating attacks become more unpredictable and relentless.
Movie details
The Keeping Room
“Some things are worth fighting for.”
2014 Western · Drama · Thriller 1h 35m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
5.8 / 10
Community rating
In this radically reimagined American Western set towards the end of the Civil War, Southerner Augusta encounters two renegade, drunken soldiers who are on a mission of pillage and violence. After escaping an attempted assault, Augusta races back to the isolated farmhouse that she shares with her sister Louise and their female slave Mad. When the pair of soldiers track Augusta down intent on exacting revenge, the trio of women are forced to take up arms to fend off their assailants, finding ways to resourcefully defend their home––and themselves––as the escalating attacks become more unpredictable and relentless.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Keeping Room?
For the defence
The Prestige Tourist
“You like your greatness pre-approved.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Beginning just after the bloody Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn, the story is told through two unique perspectives: Charles Eastman, a young, white-educated Sioux doctor held up as living proof of the alleged success of assimilation, and Sitting Bull the proud Lakota chief whose tribe won the American Indians’ last major victory at Little Big Horn.
Hannie Caulder
Drama · 1971
After she's raped by the outlaw trio who murdered her husband, a frontierswoman hires a bounty hunter to instruct her in the ways of a gun in order to exact her revenge.
The Beguiled
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Offbeat Civil War drama in which a wounded Yankee soldier, after finding refuge in an isolated girls' school in the South towards the end of the war, becomes the object of the young women's sexual fantasies. The soldier manipulates the situation for his own gratification, but when he refuses to completely comply with the girls' wishes, they make it very difficult for him to leave.
The Revenant
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In the 1820s, a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, sets out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling.
Old Henry
Western · 2021
A widowed farmer and his son warily take in a mysterious, injured man with a satchel of cash. When a posse of men claiming to be the law come for the money, the farmer must decide who to trust. Defending a siege of his homestead, the farmer reveals a talent for gun-slinging that surprises everyone calling his true identity into question.
In the Electric Mist
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Lt. Dave Robicheaux, a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana, is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie 'Baby Feet' Balboni, who is co-producer of a Civil War film. When the star of the film, Elrod Sykes, reports finding another corpse in the Atchafalaya Swamp near the movie set, Robicheaux starts another investigation, believing the corpse to be the remains of a black man whose murder he witnessed 35 years earlier.
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Daniel Barber
Written by
Julia Hart
Hailee Steinfeld
Louise
Sam Worthington
Moses
Brit Marling
Augusta
Muna Otaru
Mad
Nicholas Pinnock
Bill
Kyle Soller
Henry
Ned Dennehy
Caleb
Court is in session
Put The Keeping Room on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist
“Technique in search of a pulse.”
Immaculate construction is still construction. The film may be too busy proving its craft to feel alive.