The Claim

The Claim is a 2000 Western romance film directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring Peter Mullan, Wes Bentley, Sarah Polley, Nastassja Kinski and Milla Jovovich. The screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce is loosely based on the 1886 novel The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. The original music score is composed by Michael Nyman. The film did poorly at the box office and was received as an average film by critics. Plot Daniel Dillon is an Irish immigrant who settles in the high mountains of California during the Gold Rush of 1849. It is now 1867, and Dillon has a vault filled with gold and a town of his own, named Kingdom Come. Dillon owns nearly every business of consequence in the town; if someone digs for gold, rents a hotel room, opens a bank account, or commits a crime, they will have to deal with Dillon. 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. Among the travelers who arrive in town with Dalglish are two women, the beautiful but ailing Elena Burn and her lovely teenage daughter Hope. The presence of these women 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. Dillon had come to these mountains with his Polish wife Elena and their months-old baby, Hope. On a cold and snowy night they happen upon a shack named Kingdom Come, owned by a disillusioned '49er named Burn. Like Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge, Dillon sells Elena and Hope to the prospector in exchange for the small gold claim that would later flourish and make Dillon so wealthy. Burn has died, and Elena has come to find Dillon because Burn left her with nothing, she is dying, and she wants Dillon to give her $200 per year so that she can "do right by Hope".