disgusting, overrated, pointless

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Having watched this film years ago, it never faded from my memory. I always thought this was the finest performance by Michelle Pfeiffer that I've seen. But, I am astounded by the number of negative reviews that this film has received. After seeing it once more today, I still think it is powerful, moving and couldn't care less if it is "based loosely on King Lear".I now realize that this is the greatest performance by Jessica Lange that I've ever seen - and she has had accolades for much shallower efforts.A Thousand Acres is complex, human, vibrant and immensely moving, but surely doesn't present either of the primary female leads with any touch of glamour or "sexiness". I don't think this is well received in these times.Perhaps one reason for this film's underwhelming response lies in the fact that the writer (Jane Smiley(, screenplay (Laura Jones), and director (Jocelhyn Moorehouse) are all women. I know that, in my younger days, I wouldn't have read a book written by a woman. I didn't focus on this fact until years later.If you haven't seen this movie or gave it a chance in the past, try watching it anew. Maybe you are ready for it.

Jessica Lange and Michelle Pheiffer were the reasons I watched the movie. I was pleasantly surprised to see Carradine, Robards and Hingle were also there, and none of them disappointed me.I was, however, disappointed that this is another one in the endless line of movies coping with incestuous abuse of children. This important and tragic theme became boring, because American movie makers can't imagine any other tragedy and dark secret a family might have. A thing that was a taboo for centuries became a top one subject in last two decades, abused as the children they show. Children abused for sexual, theme abused for commercial reasons. What's the worst, instead of waking us up and telling us, hey, these things happen, open your eyes, help children, help people - they make us yawn, say oh not again, I've seen it yesterday and the day, and week before, and we change the TV channel.In fact, if you don't give up, you'll be awarded by much better elaboration of this subject than average, due to great actors in great roles, and not to the director. I haven't read the book, so I don't know if this hate against male gender represents the attitude of writer or director, but even the radical feminists usually don't go that far. There is not a single male character who doesn't turn to be a rubbish in few minutes after appearing on screen. Women may not be perfect, but men are pure crap. If there was a spider in the movie, it would be a predator in ambush catching a (female) fly if it was a male spider, or a victim of a (male) bird if it was a female spider.Only a person who keeps so much hate in herself can create a character like Ginny. Her hate poisoned everyone's life, spreading sorrow and death. There is no excuse for her: Rose's childhood was no better than Ginny's yet she didn't devote her life to hurting others. You can't expect forgiving for what has been done to her, even Christian's forgiveness has limits. If she wanted to save other children or prosecute her father, no one would make an objection. Also, one would understand if she kept her destiny hidden and that caused her psychological problems, but she shared her secret with Pete (and that also brought misery to both of them). Finally, when her father was so senile that it was too late for revenge, even on her dying day she wanted to burden people who avoided being hurt and molested. Rose, however, understands that would do no good, and that hate destroys person who hates even more than the one who is hated.Michelle Pheiffer made a great performance: we don't approve what's Ginny doing, but we understand her. She simultaneously provokes sorrow and anger in us. Jessica Lange is good as always, and the fact that Rose's motifs often aren't clear enough is not her fault. Why is Carradine in the background and finally thrown away by Rose (and director) stays a mystery for me. Probably because he is male.Like former comments, I wrote some praises and some serious objections. The truth is in the middle: it is an average movie you probably won't regret if you watch it, but also shouldn't be sorry if you miss it.

I just watched this movie for the first time after finishing the book last week. What's the problem here? Folks admit that the performances are great--I mean, Lange is stellar!--and that the film is good-looking, but it's got less than a '6'! I don't get it. Come on! The writing's not that bad!Having read a lot of Pulitzer-winning novels, and having seen a lot of the films based on them, I think a better-than-decent job was done in bringing the screenplay together. I thought the paring down of all the dialogue in the novel was executed almost perfectly. This story had a pretty hefty amount of dialogue in it, and the story really came through on the screen despite the fact that only a portion of it was used.**BOOK SPOILER PART** I was, however, a little disappointed in the Ginny-tries-to-kill-Rose subplot's being omitted. I thought that was one of the more emotionally jarring parts of the book, but it was probably a good bet to leave it out. Avid movie-goers, more than avid readers, I think, tend to be less forgiving of protagonists pulling antagonistic stuff. It's apt to confuse Johnny Lunchpail and Joe Sixpack.If you loved the book, you will like the movie. If you hated the book, you will likely hate the movie.********Rog

The story is derived from "King Lear"; the setting is a farm in Iowa. Here's a test for this kind of thing: if you find yourself asking, "Why did so-and-so do such-and-such," and the answer is, "because that's what happened in 'King Lear'," you know that the film has failed. Well, that IS what happens here. The father figure in this story isn't living his own life, he's mimicking a fictional one. But there's more wrong with the film than this.Jocelyn Moorhouse is ambitious - far more ambitious than I think she realises. She's trying to take the King Lear story and completely change the setting. This is a task in itself. The likeliest result is that the transplanted story will die, and nobody will quite be able to work out why (although there are enough successful transplants, like "West Side Story", to make it worth trying). But she's ALSO attempting a revisionist retelling. In the version of "King Lear" she wishes to create, Reagan and Goneril command our sympathy, and Cordelia is a villain. This is a task in itself, too.Succeeding at either task is hard; succeeding at both at once is impossible. In fact, succeeding at one while so much as attempting the other, is impossible. If we are to look on the very same events from a different moral perspective then the events must BE the very same events - which means there can be no tampering with setting. If the story is to be transplanted, alive, into a different setting, its moral heart must keep beating the whole while - which means there can be no tampering with ethical perspective. Moorhouse was bound to fail in not just one but in both of her endeavours. And so she did. ...Naturally, it's possible to attempt both tasks, fail at both tasks, yet by some fluke hit upon a work of art that's good for independent reasons. I mention this because I haven't read Jane Smiley's novel, which, for all I know, IS good for independent reasons. But the film isn't. If there was nothing else wrong with it, there would still be no getting around the fact that it's just so thoroughly, excruciatingly DULL. The very fields of corn are even more boring than they would be in real life - which needn't be the case, since off the top of my head I can think of four films ("The Wizard of Oz", "North by Northwest", "The Straight Story", "Kikujiro") in which the cornfields aren't boring at all.