How Long Is “The Claim”?

The 1886 novel The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy becomes this Western fable in the hands of director Michael Winterbottom. Peter Mullan stars as Daniel Dillon, the richest man in the 1869 California boomtown of Kingdom Come. Twenty years earlier, Dillon struck a Faustian bargain with a mysterious stranger, selling his wife Elena (Nastassja Kinski) and baby daughter Hope (Sarah Polley) for the claim to a gold mine. Using his resources wisely, Dillon has used his mine profits to purchase most of the important revenue-generating institutions in the area, including the hotel, bank, and liquor store. Now the gold rush is over and Dillon, who's involved with exotic local brothel owner and barkeep Lucia (Milla Jovovich), is attempting without success to dishonestly influence railroad surveyor Donald Dalglish (Wes Bentley). Dalglish's company may run tracks through Kingdom Come, ensuring the future of the town and of Dillon's wealth. Dillon's plans are threatened, however, with the arrival in town of two newcomers possessing the secrets of his past: the long-lost Elena, who's ailing, and Hope, who falls in love with Dalglish. In an effort to create a realistic-looking Rocky Mountain gold rush town, Winterbottom and production designer Mark Tildesley constructed an exact replica of a period village from archival photographs.