A Thousand Acres

A Thousand Acres (1997:***) This sober drama lasted about a week in theaters and was dismissed as dreary soap opera by most critics. There are echoes of "King Lear" in the story of a wealthy farmer who decides to divide his estate among his three daughters. But I thought the reviews overestimated the extent to which the story uses the Lear parallels. It's just a catalyst for a strong drama of family conflicts and repressed memories coming to the fore that soon goes its own way. There are some script problems: the youngest daughter's loyalty to her cruel father seems quite inexplicable, and as a lawyer you would think she'd know better than to put a hopelessly senile person on the witness stand. The fine cast does pretty well, especially Jessica Lange and Michelle Pfeiffer, although as usual Jennifer Jason Leigh is barely adequate as the youngest sister. Maybe watching this on a stormy Sunday night helped put me in the mood, but I rather enjoyed this one.

This movie was absolutely wonderful. To tell you the truth, I wasn't very excited about having to watch this movie; I didn't see it as being my type, but that just proves that you can't judge a book by it's cover. Jessica Lange and Michelle Pheiffer brought the plot to life with their incredible acting abilities. I'm glad Jennifer Jason Leigh didn't have a big part though, as I am not too fond of her. There is a surprise about the father in the movie too, if you have not yet seen it. It is a wonderful film, and I recommend seeing it.

A Jane Smiley novel, loosely based on Shakespeare's KING LEAR about the Cook family and its dark secrets. Director Moorhouse seems tamed in her approach, allowing the characters to step forward and take a bow. And how could you go wrong with the talents of Pfeiffer, Lange, Leigh, Firth, Carradine and Robards?

When I found out that Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Jason Robards were teaming for a film based on a Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, I went out and read the book immediately. "A Thousand Acres" was one of the best reading experiences of my life, and while the film couldn't capture the book in its entirety (no film could, unless it were six hours long), I really enjoyed it. Michelle Pfeiffer should have received another Oscar nomination for her fearless portrayal of Rose Cook Lewis, the character modeled after Shakespeare's evil Regan from "King Lear." While all of the performances are solid, they seem somehow timid next to Pfeiffer, who once again proves that she is most definitely not just another pretty face.

Given the way the film begins - lots of slow tracking shots of the thousand acres - I expected this to be a dull but worthy effort only brightened by Michelle Pfeiffer (the reason I bought the tape). To an extent this was true - Pfeiffer's character was by far the most interesting. Her anger throughout, although utterly justified, carried an air of self-destruction and manipulation that made the story most watchable. There were points when I wondered if the film was going to miss any tragedian tricks (perhaps I mean soap opera headlines: death, abandonment, loss with no true deliverance, etc), but it was the believability of Pfeiffer and the ugly familiness achieved by the rest of the cast that carried it, showing peaks of humanity through the weight of the film's atmosphere.