"19th Wife" draws on fact, fiction
 
By Nancy Van Valkenburg
Standard-Examiner - Ogden, Utah
 
Two women, more than a century apart, come to realize that polygamy is not a lifestyle they feel right about living. That's the story behind "The 19th Wife," a Lifetime channel film debuting at 7 p.m. Monday. Cable subscribers will find it on Channel 46.

The film is an adaptation of the best-selling book of the same name by David Ebershoff, published in 2008.

And both are a tribute to the 1876 memoir, "Wife No. 19, or the story of a life in bondage. Being a complete expose' of Mormonism, and revealing the sorrows, sacrifices and sufferings of women in polygamy." The author was Ann Eliza Young, who in 1875 divorced Brigham Young, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Chyler Leigh ("Grey's Anatomy") plays the fictional Queenie, a wife in the modern polygamist community, who sets out to exonerate neighbor wife BeckyLyn (Patricia Wettig) accused of murdering her own husband. Queenie collaborates with a childhood friend, Jordan (Matt Czuchry). Jordan's backstory mirrors the real-life stories of modern polygamy's "Lost Boys" who are expelled from polygamous communities and left to fend for themselves because the older men see them as competition for the females.

Through the course of her investigation, Queenie reads the story of Ann Eliza Young (shown in intertwining scenes), and Queenie gains insights into the nature of her polygamist community that make her want to change her life.

"The character was just such an incredibly strong woman who has a really strong sense of family and of her faith and beliefs," Leigh said. "She was just such a compelling character, with strength under extreme circumstances."

Queenie wears the pioneer-style dress and hairstyle, but she is her sheriff husband's only wife, and they have one child.

"She and her husband created a bubble within the community they lived in," Leigh said. "As my character was learning more about polygamy, so was I."

As Queenie discovers the extreme corruption in her own community, she faces increased pressure from her prophet and his enforcers to bear more children, to encourage her husband to take additional wives, to stop meeting with Jordan, and to cease her attempts to clear BeckyLyn's name.

"Her child was so incredibly important to her, and she starts to see how detrimental polygamy can be to a woman's character, and she looks at her daughter, and everyone is looking at her 6-year-old girl as a wife already," Leigh said. "It's just such a wonderfully written piece."

Leigh said she did find some aspects of her character's and real polygamists' lifestyle admirable.

"There's something to be said for the conviction these people have, how much they really believe in what they believe in, regardless of their faith," he said. "It's incredibly interesting and sad in a lot of ways. The women get treated like drones and they learn to react like robots, trying to keep everybody happy, everybody mellow, and to keep producing, to keep having children to perpetuate the cycle. The strength of these women is incredible."

As for her own life, Leigh, the mother of three small children, said one husband is plenty.

"I'm quite content," she said with a laugh.

And she feels much lighter without Queenie's hair, which required 24-inch extensions and lots of hairspray.

"It will be all the rage on the runways," she joked.

Barbara Lieberman, the film's executive producer, said she sought out rights to Ebershoff's book because it told a compelling story about two women who were inspired to make drastic, positive changes in their lives.

"I thought it was a fresh and interesting way to talk about polygamy, especially told in parallel stories, one true and one fictional."

Liberman's only regret is that time limitations forced her to choose one story as primary. She chose the story of Queenie.

"Hopefully it still holds the spirit of the book," she said.

Lieberman said besides providing a good mystery story with a surprise ending, she hopes her film will be empowering to those who watch it.

"I think it's an important story to tell about any sort of cult-like leader who is potentially dangerous. It's important that people are aware this still exists. It's important to people who are in these groups, by choice or not by choice, because they don't know anything else, to see different points of view. The message of the film is a good one, that we can become empowered and change our own lives."

Leigh agrees.

"No matter what is thrust upon you, no matter your upbringing or what you've been told was right, it's always a matter of following your heart," she said. "If what you believe is not what everyone else believes, it doesn't mean it's bad."
 
Standard.net
Originally published Saturday, September 11, 2010
 
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