Legends of Fall (1994) is directed by Edward Zwick and stars Brad Bitt, Aidan Quinn, Julia Ormund, Anthony Hopkins, and Henry Thomas. The film follows three brothers who come of age while living on a remote Montana ranch. Their lives are eventually complicated by the dawn of the first world war as well as competing love interests in their personal lives.

I first became aware of this film back in high school. I was one of the few true film lovers in my grade and was always looking for something new to watch. A fellow classmate who was interested in the more technical side of filmmaking stated that his favorite film of all time was Legends of Fall. After all these years, that recommendation stuck in the back of my mind. Well, I finally decided to check it out. Although I understand why he would pick this as his favorite film when considering his love for the art of cinematography, this is an extremely flawed film in almost all other aspects.

The film aims to be a sweeping familial epic about family, tragedy, and the complexity of love. Unfortunately, the film only succeeds in being a dramatic misfire that more often than not begs the audience to laugh at the absurdity of it all. One of the driving elements of the film are the various romances centered around Julia Ormund’s character. All three of the brothers end up having some kind of romantic connection to her throughout the film. These romances along with other factors eventually deteriorate the relationships between the three brothers. Seeing three brothers that are so close be torn apart by love is undoubtedly uncomfortable to watch. This is made more uncomfortable by the fact that Julia Ormund’s character is obviously in love with Brad Pitt’s character the entire film. She fosters romantic relationships with the other two brothers even though it is clear to both the character and the audience who she is truly in love with. It makes her seem reckless and immature to constantly be jumping from one brother to the next. She seemingly has no pride or shame. Now, that may seem like a sexist thing to say, but the same is true for the men in the story. The brothers never have any sense of self-control when it comes to love. They don’t care how it will affect their family or even if the other person truly loves them or not, they just impulsively jump into romance. Not a single character has any self control. They all seem akin to horny teenagers that feature in the Friday the 13th films. 

That brings me to my biggest flaw with the film: the seemingly mature subject matter, filmmaking techniques, and general scope of the film all just seem to mask the extremely juvenile characters/drama. For example, Brad Pitt is supposed to be the sort of flawed hero of the film. The thing is, he never does anything particularly selfless or heroic. Actually, the motivations for almost all of his actions are undeniably selfish. He is constantly portrayed as a torn soul, but that would require him to do both good and bad things. Although he never does anything particularly evil, he also never does anything that isn’t selfish in some way. By the time we get to the end, the film tries to justify/explain his character by doubling down on the idea that he has the native american spirit of the bear inside of him. This is just silly and cheesy on so many levels. First of all, you expect me to believe that a NATIVE AMERICAN spirit chose Brad Pitt of all people? Not to mention the idea of internal spirits doesn’t really fit into anything thematically about the movie. It seriously made me laugh out loud that they attempted to tie the film together on that note. 

One undeniably great thing about the film is its cinematography. This may actually be one of the most beautiful looking films I’ve ever seen. Montana is naturally beautiful and the film takes full advantage of that landscape. Some of the prohibition era cities recreated are likewise stunning. Speaking of stunning, so is the chemistry between Brad Pitt and Julia Ormund. They have so much sexual tension that it’s almost distracting. You can tell they’re going to get together before the film even hints at romantic interest. This is supported by reports that Brad Pitt and Julia Ormund lived together during the filming, with Brad Pitt stating, “It added to the sexual tension… I’ll leave it at that.”

Overall, Legends of Fall is an undeniably beautiful looking film that is unfortunately only skin-deep. The characters are often insufferable and immature which makes the attempts to present this as a mature and serious drama fall flat. The performances are serviceable, but weak characters hold them back. Although some elements work, the film ends up coming across as a cliche attempt at romantic melodrama. It’s great eye candy, but not much else. C