This film has been called a thinly veiled advertisement for 4-H. If you haven't heard of it, it was started in Ohio as a local club but is now an international organisation, kind of like the Boy Scouts but with a heavy emphasis on farming. It would have been better if "The Green Promise" had been made as an outright propaganda document because it has nothing else to offer: no murders, no action worthy of the name, not even a real love interest in a film that is only a sham drama with no real trace of comedy. Instead we see the patriarch lording it over his motherless kids while trying to give them the impression that decisions within the family are made democratically. Since when was a family a democracy, and what kind of idiot would even consider giving an eleven year old the vote?
Naturally, he comes a cropper, but with a little help from the local 4-H rep, he sees the error of his ways, and although lover boy doesn't get to take the eldest daughter to bed, they all live happily ever after. So touching. Not.
Naturally, he comes a cropper, but with a little help from the local 4-H rep, he sees the error of his ways, and although lover boy doesn't get to take the eldest daughter to bed, they all live happily ever after. So touching. Not.