A good premise ruined by a simplistic, soap-opera script, weak supporting performances (though Angelina Jolie is, as has been noted, quite good), and low production values, this story of the lives of women helping to settle the West never quite gels. Dana Delaney tries hard to hold it together, but it just doesn't work. The film's habit of sledghammering home whatever points it's trying to make doesn't help much, either. A little subtlety would have been far more effective, along with a more coherent story and characters who were a little less cardboard. Most historians agree that the "taming" of the west occurred when women began arriving in greater numbers--before then, men of the region spent the majority of their time getting drunk and killing each other and the Indians--and someday that would make a really good movie. Not this time, though.