Click to read the article
Comment
10/18/08
A Thousand Acres (1997)
24 %
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted: 46
Fresh: 11
Rotten:35
Average Rating: 4.4/10
Consensus: A Thousand Acres makes disappointingly sudsy stuff out of the source material, but benefits from solid performances by a strong cast.
Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: A THOUSAND ACRES, director Jocelyn Moorhouse's screen adaptation of Jane Smiley's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, finds skeins of KING LEAR-like conflict running through the bedrock of a midwestern... [More]
Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jason Robards
Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse
Get This Movie
Rent DVD
Click on the "ADD" button to put this movie into your Netflix queue.
Buy DVD
Reviews for A Thousand Acres
Top CriticFrom the first frame, a silhouetted barn and windmill at dawn, the images feel prefab, and the all-purpose wistful tinkly piano and sighing strings pin them even more boringly down.
07/03/08
Cry, cry, cry. Hug, hug, hug. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
07/03/08
Top CriticAll the characters are sharply defined, with Lange and Pfeiffer in fine form, and Robards suitably sour as the grumpy old curmudgeon, but the plot has been watered down until it is little more than a Waltons-styled soap.
07/03/08
Top CriticProof that Hollywood no longer knows how to make that former staple, the women's picture.
07/03/08
Owing more to the spirit of Oprah than to the Bard, pic serves up an earnest but unconvincing stew of received notions about family dysfunction, awkwardly put across by a script wheezing with melodramatic contrivances.
07/03/08
Top CriticThe story is just an empty, manipulative compilation of tragedies and misunderstandings.
07/03/08
Top CriticIn many ways, it has less in common with Shakespeare's tragedy than with Stephen King's Iowa-set horror story, Children of the Corn.
07/03/08
Top CriticRobards' senile paterfamilias is, regrettably, a grave embarrassment.
02/09/06
Top CriticNo review available.
06/23/05
No review available.
06/22/05
No review available.
06/01/05
It's a pretty powerful analysis of an extended family (where lifelong friends in farming are integral to the well being of a community) shot apart by power and greed.
04/09/05
... just doesn’t work.
03/31/05
No review available.
01/21/05
Fans of Jane Smiley's enthralling Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Thousand Acres, will find the movie version disappointing.
07/01/04
Great novels are usually adapted into bad movies.
05/07/04
No review available.
02/08/04
You'll be shocked to discover how much of the novel's richness has been lost.
05/20/03
Pfeiffer excepted, the filmmakers reap little from the rich soil they have been handed.
01/10/03
Related Forums for A Thousand Acres
RT On Current TV
What’s Hot On RT
Fresh Links
Featured
Point-Counterpoint: Bruno 
MSN's David Fear and Frank Paiva go head to head discussing the pros and cons of Bruno star Sacha Baron Cohen.
The New Cult Canon
The AV Club's Scott Tobias takes a second look at David Lynch's cult classic, Lost Highway.
Tom Cruise's 10 Best Roles
TIME takes us on a 25-year long journey into the superstar's career, giving us a look at his 10 best roles.
A Baywatch Comedy?
BuzzSugar reports on Paramount's plans to rebirth the iconic TV show as a comedy film.
IGN RSS Feeds