When I sat down to watch this film, I was expecting an engaging story, with fascinating characters. Instead, I knew within the first twenty minutes that all I would get is a sappy love story. How could Lynn Austin allow her incredible book to be horribly blasphemed by this movie? It was worse than Ella Enchanted. The whole story was changed. The setting was changed. The characters were changed or, like Eliza's other son, Jimmy, done away with altogether. In fact, the only things that stayed the same were the characters' names and the skeleton plot--a mother fights to save her farm for her children with the help of a hobo and an aunt. I knew that things from the book would have to go. But this--this...thing desecrated everything Lynn Austin wrote. In the book, Frank Wyatt is portrayed as an evil man, with only greed in his heart. He carries on a pretense of religion, but does not know God. Yet in the movie, he is seen as a man who simply does not know how to say "I love you." He is simply rough around the edges. And I could not stand the movie any longer when Luke says, "I miss him." I was like, "How could you miss him? You were starved for love and affection, and he gave you none! He refused to get help for your father Sam, leading to a horrible and painful death by tetanus! And now you say you miss him??!" (In the book, Frank Wyatt collapses and tells Luke to get help, but instead Luke runs away because of his anger toward him for not getting help for his father) Do not bother seeing this movie, I beg you! It will only ruin your mind. Read the book; it is a masterpiece. When you only see the movie, you miss so much that the book has. There is a back story that I sorely missed in the movie. (It involves Aunt Batty's and Frank Wyatt's younger years) You miss the everlasting themes, and the raw emotion that is poured into the book. The book is worth looking at. The movie is not.P.S. Eliza's real last maiden name is Gerard. In the movie it's Montclair. Come on, it's just a name. Could they not even get that part right? Well, they didn't, and I sorely advise you to avoid this movie like the plague.

I saw this movie and fell asleep at the very end of it. How did it end? And now I have deleted it and can't get it back from my DVR!! It was such a great movie and I don't like missing the end of movies. I hope that it comes on again since it was this years movie. Maybe this is why Sydney Penny wasn't on All my Children for so long??? I like her character in AMC now. I have been looking for it on Hallmark Channel and can't seem to find that it is being repeated anytime soon. I doubt that it's on DVD since I believe Hallmark told me that they don't release their movies to DVD. I will also write to them and see if they are going to play it again and then e-mail me to remind me of when it will be on again.

Once again Hallmark brings us another good and wholesome movie into our living rooms. This story is about faith, hard work and determination during their difficulties and trials times that seem to be impossible to turn it around for better, especially during the great depression with a family struggling to keep their farm and home from being foreclosed. Shirly Jones plays Aunt Betty who has strong faith in God to get them through this trial period.This story reminds me of "Run the Wild Fields" but the ending is different. Great story!

I'm a little bias, because this was based on my Aunt Lynn Austin's novel. But aside from that, it was a great, clean, uplifting movie in which they are few and far between. The movie starred Sydney Penny, Jason Gidrick (Iron Eagle), Shirley Jones (Partridge Family), Tom Bosley ( Happy Days)and Barry Corbin (Northern Exposure). Good job to the Hallmark Channel which made and aired Hidden Places, Saturday night, January 28th, 2006. If you liked this movie, you'll love the book by the same name. She also has many other great titles in bookstores. She did a series on the Kings from the Bible in which she used facts and fiction to create a knowledge of just what the old Kings in the Bible had to do the keep their standings.