The Claim (2000)

formerly known as Kingdom Come

About the film . . .

  • Milla plays Lucia, the owner of a bar in the town

  • Plot summary: Female version of Thomas Hardy's 1886 novel The Mayor of Casterbridge: an epic love story set in California in the 1850s. A man sells his wife and daughter to the devil for the claim to a gold mine, only to be haunted by them 20 years later when he is rich beyond his wildest dreams.

  • Official website: www.theclaimmovie.com

  • The Claim was part of the Berlin International Film Festival

  • Review from the Associated Press: "The acting is first-rate all around, but Bentley and Jovovich really steal the show . . . Jovovich for transcending the prostitute-with-a-heart-of-gold cliche with her silky voice and calculating glances. Both dominate the screen even when they are silent, and Jovovich's love scenes with Mullan are intoxicating: slow and rough at the same time."

  • Milla sings a fado in The Claim. According to the Rough Guide to World Music, fado is Portugal's version of the blues. "The literal dictionary definition of the word is 'fate,' " Paul Vernon writes in the Rough Guide. "The music, at least in Lisbon, could be defined as an urban cafe style, and parallels can be drawn with rembetika, blues and original tango. Like [Greece's] rembetika, its subject matter is life's harsh reality. Like rembetika again, its instrumental accompaniment is largely stringed -- in this case, the Portugese guitarra (12- or 10-string guitar) and viola (Spanish guitar) -- but unlike rembetika, its approach is more about the graceful acceptance of destiny than a garrulous resistance to it." Download an excerpt of Milla's fado here

  • From www.theclaimmovie.com:

  • Article from the Calgary Sun (December 18, 1999)

  • Interviewer: "In the movie you're playing a madame..."
    Milla: "Well sort of a madame - I'm actually a Portugese saloon singer who just happens to have all financial control of the town."

Credits

[ For complete credits, check out the Internet Movie Database listing for The Claim ]

Directed by Michael Winterbottom
Writing credits: Frank Cottrell Boyce

Cast (partial)
Peter Mullan .... Daniel Dillon
Milla Jovovich ... Lucia
Wes Bentley .... Donald Dalglish
Nastassja Kinski .... Elena Dillon
Sarah Polley .... Hope Dillon

Plot summary: Female version of Thomas Hardy's 1886 novel The Mayor of Casterbridge: an epic love story set in California in the 1850s. A man sells his wife and daughter to the devil for the claim to a gold mine, only to be haunted by them 20 years later when he is rich beyond his wildest dreams.

Release date: April 20, 2001 (US)

Stills from the trailer: (trailer available at theclaimmovie.com)

Pictures from the set:

CD: [Buy the CD here!]

Posters:

Cannes Film Festival 2000 (first 6 with Laetitia Casta):

Cannes brochure, flyer:

Premiere:

The Claim (2000)