Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more

 

A Thousand Acres (1997)

Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

A patriarch (Robards) announces that he means to divide his land between his three daughters, but when one of them, the most beloved (Leigh), tries to dissuade him, he sends her packing. Jane Smiley's novel earned points for chutzpah, but Jocelyn Moorhouse's adaptation makes heavy weather of this latter-day King Lear. Despite the leisurely Waltons-style voice-over, Larry Cook and his kin don't convince as a Midwestern farming dynasty, while the film itself has only a picturesque sense of the land. It makes for rocky terrain on which to base the ensuing melodramatics. Breast cancer, infertility, adultery, wife beating - it seems as if someone's ticking off a list of female 'issues'. If only Laura Jones' screenplay had allowed the characters more respite, a time to draw breath between calamities, the fine performances from Pfeiffer and Lange (as the older daughters) might just have made it stick. Robards' senile paterfamilias is, regrettably, a grave embarrassment.

Author: TCh

Time Out Film Guide


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields





Features

Bridesmaid revisited

Bridesmaid revisited

Anne Hathaway crashes more than a wedding in Rachel Getting Married.

Old-school house

Old-school house

Even in the age of the multiplex, a few old movie theaters continue to thrive in NYC.

Keeping the faith

Hope abounds in Spike Lee’s latest—as it does in the director himself.

Going the distance

TONY toughs out the Toronto International Film Festival, blow by blow.

Race you to the top

Tyler Perry doesn’t need critics—and may not need new audiences.

Spanish intuition

Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall flirt away an Iberian summer in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

To air is human

Man on Wire, a new doc about a surreal Manhattan morning, aims high.