A THOUSAND ACRES (Buena Vista - 1997) Starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jason Robards Screenplay by Laura Jones, based on the novel A THOUSAND ACRES by Jane Smiley Produced by Marc Abraham, Lynn Arost, Steve Golin, Kate Guinzburg, Sigurjon Sighvatsson Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse Running time: 105 minutes
** (out of four stars)
Alternate Rating: C
Note: Some may consider portions of the following text to be spoilers. Be forewarned.
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As one might expect from a film featuring a cast including some of America's greatest active actresses, Jocelyn Moorehouse's A THOUSAND ACRES, based upon the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jane Smiley, benefits from customarily outstanding central performances. Sadly, the fine performances by Jessica Lange and Michelle Pfeiffer are in service of a particularly overwrought screenplay by famed Aussie screenwriter Laura Jones which fails to live up to the standards set by their work.
As has been well publicized, A THOUSAND ACRES is a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy, "King Lear", in which the benevolent monarch is eventually driven to madness and death by the scheming and conniving of his two evil daughters Goneril and Regan after his proposal to divide his kingdom up three ways -- to Goneril, Regan, and the youngest and favourite daughter, Cordelia. However, the Ms. Smiley's novel, and Ms. Moorehouse's film, stands "King Lear" on its head while transporting it to the modern American Midwest -- here, Ginny/Goneril (Ms. Lange) and Rose/Regan (Ms. Pfeiffer) are the sympathetic protagonists, while Larry Cook/Lear (Jason Robards) is antagonistically portrayed as the abusive farmer who proposes to split his prized thousand-acre Iowa farm between daughters Ginny, Rose, and Caroline/Cordelia (Jennifer Jason Leigh).
It's a fine idea and a solid premise to attempt to reinvent the plot by embracing (and, where needed, embellishing upon) the perspective of a different set of characters in the story, and A THOUSAND ACRES is initially very faithful to this concept. The problem is that it's simply *too* faithful -- seemingly hampered by the unnecessary inclination to touch upon every major plot point in "King Lear" from its alternate perspective, the film's narrative flow suffers, lurching back and forth and resulting in inconsistent characterization and erratic behaviour in service of the plot.
The early scenes in A THOUSAND ACRES are particularly problematic, as characters seem to change their behaviour depending upon which way the wind is blowing. Featuring an absurd amount of unnecessary and extraneous voice-over by narrator Ginny, the first hour of the film seems more like a sequence of vaguely interrelated scenes rather than a cohesive introduction, and while they clearly aspire to be moving -- Richard Hartley's stirring score, virtually omnipresent at the outset, at times obscures the dialogue -- there's ultimately no real payoff, and it's easy to become distanced by the sudsy storyline.
A THOUSAND ACRES takes an irrevocable turn about halfway through the film, effectively demonizing Larry, and by association, his supportive daughter Caroline, and canonizing Ginny and Rose. It's at this point where the film begins to collapse in on itself, as all subtlety inferred in the familial relationships is lost, and where stunning revelations fraught with heavy doses of melodrama become par for the course. The film quickly loses interest in Larry and Caroline and focuses upon the sisterly relationship between Ginny and Rose; it's telling how inconsequential Larry and Caroline become that their eventual fates are left as a throwaway piece of narration.
And yet, due to the performances and the handsome cinematography by Tak Fujimoto, it all almost works. Ms. Lange and Ms. Pfeiffer turn in superb performances as the film's leading characters; Ms. Lange portrays great depth and thoughtfulness in her moving turn as Ginny, whose pleasant nature masks her struggle with long-buried repression, while Ms. Pfeiffer is equally mesmerizing as the blunt, forthright Rose. She demonstrates an emotional volatility and edginess rarely seen in any of her other film performances (ironically, reminiscent however to Ms. Lange's previous work), and Ms. Pfeiffer's icy, unblinking stares convey a torrent of spiteful emotion. Ms. Lange and Ms. Pfeiffer have great screen chemistry, and these performances are indeed so strong that they serve to emphasize the weaknesses in the film; one is so impressed with their individual performances that they are left wondering how much more effective they would be had they been in service of involving characters in a film less cumbered by artifice and not nearly as intent on tugging heartstrings.
The remainder of the cast is quite capable. Ms. Leigh and Mr. Robards, both underused in A THOUSAND ACRES, share an easy affable chemistry onscreen -- no surprise: where do you think she got the name 'Jason' for her stage name, after all? The remainder of the more-prominent male characters have little depth. Keith Carradine is fine as Ginny's dignified husband Ty (correlating to "King Lear"'s Duke Of Albany), while Kevin Anderson is again fairly wooden and quite uninteresting as Rose's destructive husband Peter. Colin Firth is uncompelling as Jess Clark, but he's not given much material with which to work -- his superfluous character adds nothing to the film (Ginny could have easily been stirred out of her stupor in another, more effective manner than through the use of his character) -- and frankly seems extraneous to the story, save for the ill-conceived need to remain near-religously faithful to the original source material.
Ms. Moorehouse reportedly was extremely displeased that her final cut of A THOUSAND ACRES was discarded in place of the one currently seen on the finished product, and threatened to go the Alan Smithee route by removing her name from the project. As can be seen by the direction credit, she was eventually appeased, but I, for one, would be curious to see how her cut of the film plays. If it's any easier to become involved with these characters and their dilemmas, it'll be an improvement, but the problem ultimately lies with Ms. Jones' unfocused, vastly-overwritten screenplay; consequently, any improvements would be minor, incremental ones.
- Alex Fung
email: aw220@freenet.carleton.ca
web : http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aw220/
-- Alex Fung (aw220@freenet.carleton.ca) | http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aw220/ "Man, that was a big spider. It was so big I thought I saw a small dog caught in its web. We are talking big. That spider could've kicked Charlotte's ass." - Hope Davis, THE MYTH OF FINGERPRINTS
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