In the onscreen text at the start of "In God's Country," we learn that in 1890, the Mormon practice of polygamy was finally banned. While the film is clearly fictional, the dramatization imagines a modern community in which powerful male church elders maintain a stable of three or more wives promote the objective of siring as many little ones as possible. Those are the core "principles" of their utopia.
In the dysfunctional community depicted in the film, there is clearly trouble in paradise, due to the strength of a single woman, Judith Leavitt. Judith is one of the many wives of Father Josiah, who is line to become the next Prophet. But the community's motto of "Keep Sweet" does not apply to Judith, who takes a stand on behalf of her young children and upsets the established order of Harmony.
The melodramatic plot focuses on the attempt of Father Josiah to give away in marriage his twelve-year-old daughter Alice to an elder. And Josiah is reserving for himself Judith's daughter from another marriage, sixteen-year-old Charlotte, who wants to marry young Jamie Coyle. When she becomes aware of these abhorrent developments, Judith plans her escape from Harmony.
The male elders in the film use the phrase "procreating time" that seems to be occurring every day in Harmony. The proposed marriage of Father Josiah to young Charlotte would be the ninth time that Josiah has tied the knot. The menfolk's smarmy and smug approach is summarized in their platitude, "be fruitful and multiply!" The only problem is that the womenfolk do not have much say in matters of family planning.
The film includes some nice secondary roles, including the kind grocery clerk Louise and the cop named Wayne, who is clearly interested in Judith in matters that extend beyond enforcing her restraining order against Father Josiah. The theme that emerges most completely is the tower of strength apparent in the love of a woman for her children and the bonding that occurs between Judith and Louise to ensure that there will be a strong dose of wedding bell blues for Father Josiah when he strides up to the altar for the ninth time.
In the dysfunctional community depicted in the film, there is clearly trouble in paradise, due to the strength of a single woman, Judith Leavitt. Judith is one of the many wives of Father Josiah, who is line to become the next Prophet. But the community's motto of "Keep Sweet" does not apply to Judith, who takes a stand on behalf of her young children and upsets the established order of Harmony.
The melodramatic plot focuses on the attempt of Father Josiah to give away in marriage his twelve-year-old daughter Alice to an elder. And Josiah is reserving for himself Judith's daughter from another marriage, sixteen-year-old Charlotte, who wants to marry young Jamie Coyle. When she becomes aware of these abhorrent developments, Judith plans her escape from Harmony.
The male elders in the film use the phrase "procreating time" that seems to be occurring every day in Harmony. The proposed marriage of Father Josiah to young Charlotte would be the ninth time that Josiah has tied the knot. The menfolk's smarmy and smug approach is summarized in their platitude, "be fruitful and multiply!" The only problem is that the womenfolk do not have much say in matters of family planning.
The film includes some nice secondary roles, including the kind grocery clerk Louise and the cop named Wayne, who is clearly interested in Judith in matters that extend beyond enforcing her restraining order against Father Josiah. The theme that emerges most completely is the tower of strength apparent in the love of a woman for her children and the bonding that occurs between Judith and Louise to ensure that there will be a strong dose of wedding bell blues for Father Josiah when he strides up to the altar for the ninth time.