The Claim is a 2000 British Western/romance film directed by Michael Winterbottom. The screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce is loosely based on the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. The original music score is composed by Michael Nyman. It was filmed in the vicinity of Calgary, Alberta.
Plot summary
In 1867, Daniel Dillon is an Irish immigrant who settled in California during the Gold Rush of ’49 and has done quite well for himself. Dillon owns nearly every business of consequence in the town of Kingdom Come; if someone wants to dig for gold, rent a room, open a bank account, or even order a drink, they have to go to Dillon to do it. One of the few profitable enterprises in town that he doesn’t own is the brothel, which is operated by Lucia, Dillon’s Portuguese lover. This cosy arrangement is disturbed by the arrival of a coachload of travellers.
Donald Dalglish is a surveyor with the Central Pacific Railroad, which wants to put a train either through Kingdom Come, or somewhere in the vicinity. He is here to decide the route. Dillon is anxious to ensure that the railway line is routed through “his” town, as this will bring more business. Arriving in town with Dalglish are two women, the beautiful but ailing Elena Burn and her lovely teenage daughter Hope; their presence is deeply troubling for Dillon, for they are the keys to a dark secret Dillon has kept from the people of Kingdom Come for nearly twenty years. Like Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge, he had “sold” them 20 or so years earlier, in his case to a disillusioned prospector named Burn: Burn has died, and Elena is in need of money. (A major departure from “The Mayor of Casterbridge” is that Hope is indeed Dillon’s daughter.)
Much of the emotional interest in the film revolves around Dalglish’s ambivalent relations with Lucia (ditched by Dillon when his wife re-appears) and Hope, who is eminently nubile and altogether “a better class of person”.
The death of Elena coincides with the decision to route the railway some distance from the town. Dillon is thus faced with a double blow.
Cast
- Peter Mullan Daniel Dillon
- Milla Jovovich Lucia
- Wes Bentley Donald Dalglish
- Nastassja Kinski Elena Burn/Elena Dillon
- Sarah Polley Hope Burn
- Julian Richings Bellanger
- Sean McGinley Sweetley
- Duncan Frasier Crocker
