The Good Wife / The Claim

The Good Wife (1987)

Playwright Peter Kenna wrote the screenplay for this compelling and beautifully crafted drama set in 1930s Australia that concerns a lovely young bride (Rachel Ward) who must struggle between devotion to her husband (Bryan Brown) and her uncontrollable attraction to the town's unctuous new barkeep (Sam Neill). With Steven Vidler, Jennifer Claire. 98 min. C/Rtg: R

The Claim (2000)

Inspired by Thomas Hardy's "The Mayor of Casterbridge," this sumptuously photographed saga from director Michael Winterbottom is set in a small town in California's Sierra Nevadas in 1867. It's there that Daniel Dillon (Peter Mullan), a wealthy former prospector, runs the town, but finds his power threatened by a railroad surveyor (Wes Bentley) and the arrival of a sickly Polish refugee (Nastassja Kinski) and her young daughter (Sarah Polley), both of whom hold dark secrets to Dillon 's past. With Milla Jovovich. 120 min. C/Rtg: R