A MAP OF THE WORLD
Reviewed by Harvey Karten First Look Pictures Director: Scott Elliott Writer: Jane Hamilton (novel), Peter Hedges, Polly Platt Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Julianne Moore, David Strathairn, Ron Lea, Arliss Howard, Chloe Sevigny, Louise Fletcher
The state of Wisconsin has not fared well in the movies lately. Ralph Farnsworth gets laughed at for being from "Wisconsin: the Party State," in "The Straight Story." Susan Sarandon can't wait to get away from Bay City in "Anywhere But Here." Matt Damon as a fallen angel is exiled to the Dairy State in "Dogma." And in "Wisconsin Death Trip," James Marsh exposes multiple cases of murder, madness and mayhem in the Black River Falls, Wisconsin of the 1890s. Now, in Scott Elliott's "A Map of the World," the townsfolk in a rural Wisconsin burg misinterpret the words and gestures of one of its outspoken residents, as Sigourney Weaver, the urban transplant to a farm near Racine, makes a painful transition from alien to outcast.
"A Map of the World" confirms that of all the psychological states you'll want to avoid, guilt is the real killer. Of course, you want to have a conscience--a sense of right and wrong, as too many people seem to be adept at committing crimes without the slightest compunction. But when you feel a sense of dread for something you have done that has had tragic consequences or for something you did not even do, be prepared for the usual demons that send people running to shrink their heads: depression, anxiety, nightmares, and self- destructive acts.
"A Map of the World," which opens for just one week in December for Oscar consideration before commencing widely the following month, is a picture that will boost Sigourney Weaver's career several notches. In fact, don't be too surprised if the Academy will be juggling nominations that pit Ms. Weaver against Tom Hanks, Kevin Spacey and Bob Hoskins this time around. She has the uncanny ability to change her mood credibly from depression to a twinkling blitheness, and back again to a tearful, near-breakdown condition. Watch her laugh almost hysterically when being questioned by an investigator and you can sense her agony. Don't be surprised if you do a double-take when she is put on trial and answers a key question with a one word answer that drives her own lawyer up a wall.
The film by long term Broadway actor and theater director Scott Elliott, from a novel by Jane Hamilton which was adapted by Peter Hedges and Polly Platt, confirms Elliott as a man who pays attention to visual detail and has a facility in administering strong ensemble performances. You may wonder at the slow beginning, but will soon see that the lengthy scenes of Alice Goodwin (Sigourney Weaver) juggling the chaos of little kids in her farmhouse are there to show how easy it is for a parent to be distracted for a moment, for the twinkling that sets the stage for tragedy. Alice and her ditzy husband Howard (David Strathairn)--a guy who can casually keep his hand in a cereal box while a panful of eggs catches fire--are city people experimenting with life on a farm outside Racine, Wisconsin (filmed north of Toronto). The Goodwins and their two children, the difficult eight-year-old Emma (Dara Perlmutter) and five-year-old Claire (Kayla Perlmutter), are recent arrivals, and in the tradition-bound community they are considered outsiders. Their one friendship--with neighbors Theresa Collins (Julianne Moore) and her husband Dan (Ron Lea)--is thrown into cataclysmic jeopardy when the small daughter of the Collinses accidentally drowns in the lake at the Goodwins' home while Alice is distracted. Racked with guilt, Alice is subsequently accused by the sluttish Carol Mackessy (Chloe Sevigny) of sexually abusing her child at the local elementary school where Alice serves as nurse--the allegations presumably encouraged by her neighbors' willful contempt for her as an outsider and their attributing negligence to her for allowing the little girl to drown.
The choice scenes occur when photographer Seamus McGarvey cuts back and forth from Alice's accommodations in the Racine County jail, where the guilt-ridden woman puts up no defense against the brutal sassing she regularly accepts from fellow inmate Dyshett (Aunjanue Ellis), to the setting at Theresa's home, where the distraught Howard Goodwin comforts a disconsolate Theresa Collins to the point of initiating an affair. One detail made clear by the hostile treatment Alice receives from many of her co-inmates is that prison is hell largely because the inmates themselves make it so. Failing to bond, to see a common link to one another and a class solidarity, they take out their frustrations on one another, making their lives in close quarters an even more damaging experience. At Alice's trial, Arliss Howard turns in a luminous, comical role as her clever lawyer, grinning his way through the proceedings because, as he puts it, he wouldn't want to be in the business if it were not fun.
Like "Anywhere But Here," a high quality movie made with the same affection, "A Map of the World" is a searing yet wholly believable journey of two people who are taken from a closed, insular world into a new, unpredictable experience. Whether viewers have kids or not, they will likely be immersed in the proceedings from the time that an innocent child is drowned (evoking memories of "The Sweet Hereafter"), through the remorse-ridden Alice's trial for sexual abuse. You'll think twice before deciding, like so many young people during the sixties and early seventies, to uproot yourself from an urban background, becoming an outsiders in a stodgy, rural enclave. The title comes from an imaginary map which Alice had drawn of a fantasy world which embraces a small, loving community.
Rated R. Running Time: 125 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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