"The Crucible" is slow, but it doesn't make the film bad. It is a very impressing, beautiful, well-acted and well-done film.

The story of passion, lies, madness, witchcraft and tragedy kept my attention. The adaptation of Arthur Miller's play is superb.

Joan Allen deserved her nomination for the Oscar as best supporting actress and Daniel Day-Lewis should have been nominated.

A must see.

Rating: 9/10

The settling is 17th Century Salem, Massachusetts. A group of spoil teenage girls fearing in getting in trouble for meeting in the woods at midnight for a secret love-conjuring ceremony where the town minister mistook it as witchcraft. Instead of love, psychopath Abigail Williams (Winona Ryder) wishes for the death of her former lover's John Proctor (Daniel Day Lewis) wife. The girls are accused of witchcraft, but to save themselves they accused others. Soon the entire village is consumed by hysteria, and innocent victims are put on trial, leading to a accusations flying, judgments are pronounced, and sentences are quickly and ruthlessly carried out. The only person whom can save them is Mary Warren (Karron Graves). The Crucible isn't a pretty film, but Nicholas Hytner's grim movie version of the classic Arthur Miller concerning the Salem witch hunts is a tragedy and in some what could be also be called a horror/thriller movie. It explodes into a melodramatic but never less than gripping story between both John Proctor Vs Abigail Williams. Ryder is wicked insidious, as the angry, hysterical Abigail, caught up in a conspiracy of lies from which there's no escape looking for revenge against him. Daniel Day-Lewis gives us a stubborn yet vulnerable John Proctor. He gives one of the best lines in the film toward the end. Joan Allen delivers a heart-breaking performance as the anguished Elizabeth, a fervently religious woman unable to disprove the allegations made against her and her husband.it's pretty evident (if you read the book) that Elizabeth did forgive John Proctor. if she hadn't, she wouldn't have blamed herself partly for the affair. their relationship is very complex, but in the end she does forgive him. this draws on one of Miller's main themes of forgiveness. This story really shows how far people will go in their words and actions when they are motivated by blind fear. The Crucible was written as a thinly disguised attack on the McCarthy anti-communist Red Scare "witch hunts" of the 1950s America.! This is so dramatic and powerful my heart clenches every time I see this, so check it out.