REVIEW: A Thousand Acres
By Luke Buckmaster
1 and a half stars out of 5
I found it amazing - no, astonishing - that A Thousand Acres is amongst fellow pulitzer-prize winning novels-turned-films as The Diary of Anne Frank, Driving Miss Daisy, The Age of Innocence and To Kill a Mocking Bird. Somewhere along the line - and I suspect it's the conversion to the big screen - Jane Smiley's tale of two sisters' traumatic family has been drained of emotion, passion and heart.
Larry Cook (Jason Robards) owns 1,000 acres of fertile land in Iowa, USA. The farm, irrigated by his grandfather and father - and passed down through the generations - has given him respect in the community and a pessimistic attitude towards life and relationships. Troubles starts to brew when Larry, realizing that his days on Earth are numbered, decides to divide his land between his three daughters - Ginny (Jessica Lange), Rose (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Caroline (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Ginny and Rose are eager to inherit part of their family heritage whilst Caroline remains uncertain as to the success of this venture.
But when a closet of dark family secrets is opened, and memories of tormented childhood's and chilling experiences are revealed, the three daughters and their menacing father will take a turn for the worse.
For most of its hollow duration, A Thousand Acres ultimately angered me for this simple reason: it is very easy for an average action flick to be insulted for its obvious flaws, yet these sorts of family "tear jerkers" often slip past criticism because they look so much classier than they actually are. Have a couple of high profile actors, a slimy romantic plot/subplot and a tear shed here and there and what do you have? A potentially great film? Perhaps. A definite "good" film? No way.
There were many things that irritated me about A Thousand Acres. To start with, the relationship between Rose and Caroline - the films central focus - never once convinced me. As the unfortunate viewers, we are expected to believe that these two women have a deep understanding and love for each other - yet at one stage, one of them completely cuts off all contact from the other - not speaking or writing for years. But of course, a couple of scenes later, they are together again with no mention of what the hell happened to them previously.
A slab of utterly trashy scenes occur upon the introduction of "Jess Clark (Colin Firth)", a character that this very 2D film attempts to bring into another dimension of love, lust and greed. Unfortunately, any scenes that could have allowed us to have a greater understanding of the characters needs have been completely avoided - it almost seems that director Jocelyn Moorhouse has gone out of her way to create a set of dull predicaments. And it's those sorts of ludicrous thoughts which plagued my mind from start to finish - making myself search for a reason that would explain exactly how a pulitzer-prize winning novel could end up so ordinary as a motion picture.
What saves A Thousand Acres from total failure is its adequate performances from Pheipher and Lange (adequate, simply because the dialogue would not allow an in depth understand of the characters) and a music score that belongs on Easy Listening 3MP.
A thousand triumphs? No - a thousand tears of boredom.
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