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Poster for Wild River

Wild River

The wild language…the wild hungers…the wild furies!

1960 · 1h 50m · APPROVED Drama, Romance
Directed by Elia Kazan

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Overview

A young field administrator for the TVA comes to rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam on the Tennessee River. He encounters opposition from the local people, in particular a farmer who objects to his employment (with pay) of local black laborers. Much of the plot revolves around the eviction of an elderly woman from her home on an island in the River, and the young man's love affair with that woman's widowed granddaughter.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
100%
Tomatometer
Fresh

Both sections of the flavorful, vernacular-filled screen play have been given professional treatment.

A.H. Weiler, New York Times
Fresh

This 1960 drama is probably Elia Kazan's finest and deepest film, a meditation on how the past both inhibits and enriches the present.

Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Fresh

In studying a slice of national socio-economic progress in terms of people, it catches something timeless and essential in the human spirit and shapes it in the American image.

Variety Staff, Variety
Fresh

One of [Kazan's] least theatrical and most affecting films.

Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Fresh

Kazan's films are better known for showcasing stratospheric Method-emoting over visual expressiveness, which makes Wild River's gorgeous imagery a shock...

David Fear, Time Out New York

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