 Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse
Script by Laura Jones
Based on the Pulitzer prize winning novel by Jane Smiley
Cinemotographer Tak Fujimoto ("Philadelphia", "Silence of the Lambs", "Married to the Mob")
Michell Pfeiffer - Rose
Jessica Lange - Ginny
Jennifer Jason Leigh - Caroline
Jason Robards - Daddy/Larry |
Translating a book to the screen is no easy task - if nothing else you don't have the leisure to develop characters in the way that you can in a novel. Successfully translating a classic play to a novel and then to the screen is even more of a challenge.
"A Thousand Acres" is the latest film from Australian director Jocelyn Moorhouse ("How to Make an American Quilt", "Proof"). Moorhouse and her compatriot, screenwriter Laura Jones ("Portrait of a Lady", "An Angel at My Table"), have drawn on American Jane Smiley's best selling, Pulitzer Prize winning book "A Thousand Acres", to create a film which puts a feminist spin on Shakespeare's classic story of a family divided - "King Lear".
Instead of old England we find ourselves in the farmlands of present day Iowa. The beauty of the flat landscape, open to the sky, is wonderfully captured in the cinematography of Tak Fujimoto ("Philadelphia", "Silence of the Lambs", "Married to the Mob").
Instead of being the tragedy of the father, this story is told from the perspective of the two elder, married daughters - Ginny and Rose. As in "Lear" their aging father decides to divide his land equally between his three daughters. However he falls out with his youngest and most openly loving daughter, Caroline, a young lawyer. The divisions which this creates open up old wounds - unspoken rivalries and denied desires - which tear the family apart.
The central performances are stunning. Jessica Lange plays the gentle Ginny who always seeks to pour oil on an troubled waters, even at the expense of burying the past. Her younger sister Rose is played by Michelle Pfeiffer. Rose is angry, strong, determined. She is fighting a battle against cancer and believes passionately that the past should not only be brought to light but faced openly.
It is good to see the father/daughter relationship being explored so intensely on film and from the daughter's perspective. "A Thousand Acres" is a powerful story that stirs up the dark side of family relationships - the jealousies and rivalries between siblings and between the generations - but, having brought them to light offers hope for better relationships in the future.
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