1000 Acres

[Home] [Back to the reviews] My Movie Pick for the week is going to be......... now don't get mad anyone (Men) in particular.

"A Thousand Acres" If anyone read the book, I'm anxious to see the movie.

Kathy

Barbara

I'll begin at the end since the last few lines of dialogue in the hospital answered the question I have been wrestling with the past few years: "Why do I have all this anger?" Rose, in the summation of her life, said:"I was not afraid to see what was there; I never looked away; and I never forgave the unforgiveable." Anger can be a badge of courage. Rose wore it that way and spared her children the pain of her own history.
Gennie's approach to life was totally different but also with merit.

Caroline, the daughter raised with the least contact from her mother or father comes from a different reality, and lives a totally different life. She is worlds apart from her older sisters. Her father remains her father and is cared for as a sick old man would be by a grateful child who felt the need to honor and respect the role.
Never forgiving the unforgivable. What an incredible rush I felt to finally hear those words spoken as a proud statement rather than something to be looked down on. The movie had several scenes that when I look back on them were a bit too much (hopefully I have them accurate since the movie is due back tomorrow already):

Giving the farm away at a party sans any of the guests and with the tractor in the background.
The church supper that broke into fisticuffs and cursing...totally out of the blue.
Caroline and Dad (and Gennie) in the clothing store.
Pete and his truck ending up in that little creek (and drowning!) with no damage to the bridge.
The courtroom scene where Dad loses it almost after the first question (it took Tom Cruz at least 15 minutes in A Few Good Men to get that result).
And the Ob/Gyn Tip of the Day: don't drink well water. What in the hell was that for?

I suspect maybe some good parts from the book might have been scotch-taped to the movie with not enough groundwork laid.
All in all I thought the movie pick was an absolutely perfect compliment to Animal Dreams and our recent discussions about "Denial," "What causes one to forget," and "How we Remember."
Hey, Sisters "Garrison"...... you go, girlfriends!

Vicki

When this book was first awarded the Pulitzer Prize I got a copy and began to read it. I waded through the first 100+ pages (it's a sizeable book)
and could not read on. Jane Smiley's style is soap opera-like. Believe it or not, there are more awful things in the book than even appear in the
movie!

To catalogue: incest, breast cancer, dead parent, wife beating, child beating, miscarriage, infidelity, denial...hmmm that seems pretty
comprehensive. Anything bad that might have ever happened to you, happened to this family. It is true that some families suffer tragedies; however, I
think karma plays an integral role.

I can applaud Rose in her determination to face the facts. However, she never questioned why she needed to stay close to those facts...fanning the
anger. It eventually killed her (I know, I know, hereditary breast cancer killed her). The best line in the movie; however, was hers, "I did not
forgive the unforgiveable." That line was definitely worth the price of admission!

This was primarily Ginny's story, and I was heartened when she took $1000 and left Ty. Although it took her a long time to reach a place she could
live in ("I was a ninny."), she appeared to be more practical...sometimes you save your life by walking away with your knowledge / truth.

Caroline, the youngest, reminded me too much of Pat's youngest sister...and I have my own issues with her which would get braided into my
comments...perhaps unfairly. She was spared much of the struggle and turned out strong & blind...a dangerous combination.

There is a class of novels/movies to which people flock. I'll put Bridges of Madison County (which I read) and Titanic (which I couldn't bring myself
to go see) in the group. They allow the reader/viewer to be swept along on an emotional tide. I can't surrender my mind and take the ride.

But I will say this was a good pick to get the whole group back into the process because it was definitely a movie the majority of us had not
already seen (so we had to rent to review), it was taken from a Pulitzer Prize novel (so it merits a look), and it will spark polar reactions (so it
has grab). Good choice, Kathy ...your picks have added a lot of meat to the rotation.

Vicki

Patrick

Forgive me if this is an abrupt no nonsense review, but I don't think the movie deserved a lot of post viewing thought. It is a twinkie, no twinkies can taste good given the right moment...... I think this was probably a good book condensed into much too brief a script which tried to throw everything significant in just to make sure they didn't miss anything.

I don't need to recount all the significant events which took place because in and of themselves they don't add up to much except the following:

Family histories have some tendency to repeat themselves.Responsible parents put their children out of harms way if they know they can try to save them by doing so. The sending of the children to boarding school was a responsible action.
Parents get old and if you haven't resolved things by that time,you're going to have difficulty and possibly be really messed up. When my dad had his stroke, I went through some of the questioning,"How do I judge all this? Why wasn't I ever truly accepted for just being me? Why couldn't we have been closer? I've resolved that I'm an adult now, bad things happened, some of which I can't even discuss to this day, but what's done is done. Live learn and move on.
Other lessons: When a grown-up calls their dad DADDY there is probably something really, really, really wrong. Some people are really sick,. incest is wrong, you shouldn't publically humiliate others especially at church picnics, drinking well water might give you breast cancer, you never know what you might hear when you hide in a changing room (did anyone else catch the symbolism-she was in a changing room when her life was changed), don't drink and drive, some things are unforgiveable, and not all movies are great.

To the selector: It goes without saying that you shouldn't take this personally. This is just about the movie. When the commercials were out for this movie I wanted to see it so I'm glad I finally got the chance. Fondly,
The Assistant

Mike

Wow, this movie had absolutely NO Social Redeeming value whatsoever:

Peter, a coward who couldn't face his wife's disfigurement,
Rose, whose 'accomplishment' of 'Not Forgiving the Unforgivable' most likely exacerbated the few remaining cancer cells in her body to full bloom, thereby causing final destruction of the vessel of stubbornness,
Jenny, who till the very end retained her 'Ninnyism' by not revealing the truth of Larry Cook to Caroline, the youngest sister,
Caroline, whose pursuit of her own career goals blinded her to the truth of Larry's declining judgement, or at the very least, incapacitated her toward action on his behalf,
Ty, whose greed caused him to put his interest in 'The Farm' before his relationship with Jenny,
Larry? Well, nothing especially bad happened to Larry that doesn't normally come about as the result of aging. He got old, he got bitter, and finally he died.

I hated the whole lot of them. But mostly I hated the producers/directors of the movie. And finally, I hated that a piece of junk like this could have ever received a Pulitzer Prize!

Kimberly

I wish I could say that we liked this film, but we cannot. We agreed with
Patrick and Mike. How many more bad things could happen to one family;
although, I think that pestilence and drought were missing.

There were some thoughts running through my mind though:

if Rose and Ginny knew that giving the farm away was killing their father, why didn't they give it back?
if Rose and Ginny knew that living on the farm was stifling their existence, why didn't they move away? and
if Rose knew that Ginny was having an affair with Jess, why did she begin a relationship with him as well?

Mom also brought up a good point in that there were some obvious story inserts
which had no real place, such as Pete's death, the water causing miscarriages
incident, etc. These were probably critical story building episodes in the
book, but for a 2 hour movie, you only get a snippet.

It is hard to believe that this material would be a Pulitzer Prize winner.
But then again I don't see the appeal of THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY
Oh well....
until next time.....

Susan

My review is a bit late, but here it is.

First, let me try to redeem Jane Smiley's literary talents by saying that the book is a thousand acres better than the movie. The film could very well just have been a trailer for the book, had it at least captured the essence of the story. Instead, it was snippets from the novel thrown together incoherently, thereby betraying the message of the novel.

This film centered way too much on the emotions of its characters lives, rather than on their actions and thoughts, which is what clearly defines them. In the novel, Ginny develops such a strong hatred for Rose (and the anger which allows her to speak her mind) that she tries to poison her. Where was this hatred in the film? And this affair with Jess? How was any of this developed in the film? I could not see how anyone who had not read the book could possibly know what was going on in the movie.

Jane Smiley won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel because of it's modern day King Lear story line. The elements of tragedy are so vividly brought to life in her writings, and the parallels to Shakespeare's classic are more than evident. The mad, evil father and his three daughters, two of them fearfully loyal, the other bravely disobedient, so strongly portrayed in Smiley's writings, so sadly lost in the films acres of infertile soil. (Sigh).

Not much else to say here. The only talent in this film was that of the director. He/she was endowed with the ability to destroy talent.

Now, do we have a review coming from the video picker?

P.S. Kim, I think we will wait until the next rotation to take our turn. So just skip us and return to us next time around. We will probably partake in this week's viewing, but next week, I will be thinking of you all (though hopefully not as I'm going down in the middle of the Carribean with no life jacket on!)

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