09/19/97
MOVIE REVIEW: A Thousand Acres
Pfeiffer and Lange weather a thousand crises

By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal-Bulletin Arts Writer

** (out of five)
Starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange, Jason Robards, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Colin Firth, Keith Carradine, Kevin Anderson, Pat Hingle. A Touchstone Pictures release written by Laura Jones from the novel by Jane Smiley, directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse. Rated R, contains violence, adult themes, nudity, profanity. Running time: 104 minutes.

The only thing growing higher than the Iowa corn in A Thousand Acres is the melodrama.

This cheerless film about a family squabbling over control of a farm is based on Jane Smiley's novel, which won a Pulitzer Prize. I trust that Smiley's book had better writing than Laura Jones's screenplay, which plays like some incredible soap opera. It should have been called A Thousand Plagues.

It's the kind of movie where when one character who has recently had a mastectomy brightly voices every confidence of a permanent recovery, you pause to think, "Uh-oh," while trying to guess the precise moment when the other shoe will drop. Director Jocelyn Moorhouse had more success with this sort of sudsy woman's picture in the less abrasive How to Make an American Quilt.

If nothing else, A Thousand Acres shows that life in the middle of a bucolic cornfield can sow just as dysfunctional a family as can a nasty city.

Child abuse. Adultery. Incest. More adultery. More incest. Recovered memory. Alcoholism. Dementia. Cancer. Heart attacks. Suicide. Divorce. Father against daughters. Sister against sisters. Neighbor against neighbor. Inter-family lawsuits. The problems just keep on coming.

When a church social erupts in a fistfight, you know things have gotten about as bad as they can get in A Thousand Acres.

At least you're warned about what you're in for up front, when the credits are played out against an austere-looking barn and windmill while menacing clouds race overhead.

Soon the King Lear-ish setup is sprung as aging farmer Larry Cook (Jason Robards) announces that he is retiring and splitting the farm among his three daughters. While Rose (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Ginny (Jessica Lange) and their husbands think this is a swell idea because they live in big houses within shouting distance of one another on the farm, sister Caroline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a Des Moines lawyer, has reservations.

Caroline's initial doubts are like waving a red flag in front of Larry's nose. He cuts her out of the deal, even locks the door on her when she comes to make amends.

Soon there are accusations and recriminations not only between Caroline and her sisters, but between Rose and Ginny and their husbands, played respectively by Kevin Anderson and Keith Carradine. The catalystic arrival of the long-absent prodigal son (Colin Firth) of a neighboring farmer (Pat Hingle) further drives a wedge between Rose and Ginny . . . and more opportunities for late-night soul-baring.

Conflict in a thunderstorm

When the increasingly deranged and grumpy Larry loses it in a shouting match with Rose and Ginny that's staged in the middle of a thunderstorm, he's out of there, seeking comfort from Caroline. Together they join in a lawsuit to get the farm back.

That's the tug-of-war at the center of A Thousand Acres. It serves to uncover more anguish all around as old secrets are dredged up, nearly as unconvincingly as the sight of Pfeiffer and Lange in their aprons carrying covered dishes to a picnic.

Lange went down this farm road 13 years ago in the better Country, about farmers struggling to save their land in tough financial times. Country was spare and direct where A Thousand Acres is filled with invented crises.

Undoubtedly, both Lange and Pfeiffer wanted to try something new and stretch as actresses, though the plot may stretch audience patience to the limit. For all her earnest dowdiness here, I suspect that most people would still rather see Pfeiffer as Catwoman.