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This post was actually written by daughter, Amy when she was a middle schooler. She watched a DVD on the Mayflower with family friends, and I asked her to review it. This review originally appeared on my first website, FundaFunda.com but I moved it here as I think it will be useful to the readers of this blog. I did do some minor editing
Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower is about the Puritans who left England because their religion was illegal. It starts with them trying to sneak out of England and ends with them at the first Thanksgiving.
What is the style of the movie?
The movie was filmed with characters acting the story out, and historians telling us more about the story. After each scene, historians told us some background information about what was going on. Scenes were short, usually a minute or two, sometimes more, while the historians sometimes talked for at least 5 minutes. The commentary was done either by the actors or the historians.
It was very historically accurate, especially with the historians telling us more about what was going on in that time period.
What age would appreciate it?
This is a good movie for middle school and high school, anyone younger than that will have a hard time sitting through it. I suggest 7th grade and up.
This movie would be a great Thanksgiving movie to watch around Thanksgiving Day, but it is a long movie, 143 minutes. (By the way, Amazon’s runtime is incorrect, it is not 180 minutes). But, you could break it up into shorter sessions. 5 half-hour sessions would mean you could watch it over a week, one session per day.
Overall impression of Desperate Crossing
There wasn’t much that they told us that I didn’t already know, due to having studied this time period a lot, but I did learn a couple of new things. I didn’t know that they went to Holland before they went to the New World and that their first attempt to escape failed.
I think this was a very informative movie, and I learned quite a few new things about the pilgrims. It would be a fun movie to watch around the time of Thanksgiving with family and/or friends as I did. It was definitely an excellent Thanksgiving movie that goes beyond the basics of the traditional Thanksgiving story.
** A study guide for this movie is also available from The History Channel.
Meryl van der Merwe
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