A big family weepie about a big family. The `Lacey tribe', Mom (Kathy Bates) and six kids, pull up roots in Los Angeles and end up in the wilds of Idaho, where they take a half-built house and, with a promise of work for the man who owns the land, make it their own. The resulting catalogue of hardships and tiny triumphs is nicely constructed, and only lacks that certain touch of class that the best Hollywood family pictures have. Performances are competent, especially so from Soon Teck-Oh as the oriental owner of the site, and Bates' then-real-life husband Tony Campisi makes a rare film appearance as the man who courts, then clouts her.

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