Movie Review: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Title: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Author N/A
Genre: Romance, musical, comedy
My Rating: ****
Official Rating: G
Age Group: 8+

Summary
Adam and his six brothers live alone in the mountains. One day, Adam decides to go to town for supplies--and a wife. And he brings one back! His understanding of a wife is completely different from hers, however. He wants someone to cook and clean. She wants love.
Adam goes about his life normally except for sharing a bedroom with Milly. Milly decides to teach Adam's younger brothers how to get girls of their own. All is going well until the boys are forced to defend themselves. Afraid they will never get their girls back, the boys sulk until Adam comes up with a plan. They're going to kidnap their girls like the Romans once did.
Of course, that doesn't go over quite as nicely as it sounds.

Word of Warning
All the problems with this movie depend upon the viewer's knowledge of men and women. Nothing is ever shown and it is barely implied. Thus, older viewers with more understanding will get more out of the movie (but not in a bad way), whereas younger viewers will not understand as much (and not be harmed by the watching).

• Adam and Milly have a brief argument about sharing a bed the night she arrives home. The younger brothers are all downstairs, apparently waiting to see what will happen with a strange but innocent curiosity. 
• There are a few kisses, various fist fights (one scene with bruises and scrapes being nursed), and guns.
• The girls are kidnapped against their will by desperate young men who are so in love they simply cannot focus on their chores. There is, however, no suggestion or hint at the young men wanting anything from the women in return. Milly solves an awkward moment by making the men sleep in the barn all winter until the girls can be returned.
• Milly has a baby, something Adam was not, apparently, aware of (though there is no hint that the child is not his).
• There is an awkward scene in which the brothers attempt to bring the girls back home (though they now want to stay) and the townsmen walk in. To the random bystander who has not been watching the movie, it looks like the brother is forcing himself upon the girl, who is struggling, and the townsman is there to rescue her. Which is exactly the opposite of what is actually happening.
• The girls fall in love with their kidnappers and, in order to stay with them, all claim Milly and Adam's baby as their own. A wedding follows, the fathers of the girls standing in the background, the girls and the brothers happily the victims of a shotgun wedding.

My Thoughts:
It was funny and almost completely innocent. It's hard to explain how something like kidnapping girls to make them wives is innocent, but the brothers' intentions were almost childish in that viewers are never once presented with the idea the brothers are only after the girls for pleasure and satisfaction of certain desires--or after them for that reason at all. The boys all genuinely fell in love with the girls and vice versa. Adam and Milly conquered their problem, Adam discovering what love and a wife really were. Milly, well, Milly triumphed over the entire movie.
So, throw together seven redheaded young men singing and dancing, with seven beautiful women doing the same, with a comical story meant to mimic that of the Romans, and there really is only one result: a really good movie, appropriate for nearly the whole family.