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Movies / On DVD / A Thousand Acres
A Thousand Acres

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A Thousand Acres (1997)

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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... 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 family. Jason Robards stars as Larry Cook, a powerful, stoic Iowa farmer who decides to retire and split his 1000 acres of land among his three daughters. His two eldest daughters, Rose (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Ginny (Jessica Lange), live and work on the farm and happily accept the lucrative agreement, while the youngest, Larry's favorite, Caroline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), has abandoned farming life for a law career in Des Moines and refuses to take part in the deal. Initially, Larry is consumed with rage and shuts out Caroline while Rose and Ginny go about running the farm with their dutiful but greedy husbands. However, as Larry begins to lose touch with his farming life, he loses touch with reality, and his painful descent into madness leaves him bitterly opposed to his daughters' ways of running the farm. Paranoid and disillusioned, he decides to sue Rose and Ginny with Caroline's help in an effort to regain his patriarchal control. The lawsuit divides the family forever, leaving Rose and Ginny to suffer alone while realizing painful memories from their childhood. As Rose and Ginny discover their own individual strengths in the face of adversity, they learn how to survive on their own, without the protection of the farm and the suffocating presence of their father. Moorhouse's film is an epic tale of loss and redemption that highlights strong and earthy performances from Pfeiffer and Lange. [More]

Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jason Robards

Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jason Robards, Colin Firth, Keith Carradine, Kevin Anderson, Pat Hingle, John Carroll Lynch, Anne Pitoniak, Vyto Ruginis, Michelle Williams, Elizabeth Moss, Ray Toler, Ken Tigar, Steve Key, Dan Conway, Stan Cahill, Ray Baker, Beth Grant, Andrea Nittoli

Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse

Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse
Screenwriter: Laura Jones
Story: Jane Smiley
Composer: Richard Hartley

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Sep 3, 2002

[DVD Details]
 
 
  • A Thousand Acres
  • Academy Award(R)-winner Jessica Lange (Best Actress, 1995, BLUE SKY) and Michelle Pfeiffer (ONE FINE DAY) join Jennifer Jason Leigh (GEORGIA) and Oscar(R)-winner Jason Robards (1977, Best Supporting Actor, ALL THE PRSIDENT'S MEN) in this widely acclaimed motion picture about silence and betrayal ... rivalry and revenge! When an aging father retires, he passes the thriving family farm on to his three daughters. But this generous gift ignites an exposive series of events that threaten to tear the family apart forever! This powerful story of shocking secrets, unspoken rivalries, and hidden desires is a film you must see ... with performances you'll never forget!
  • Source: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
  •  
     
     
     

    Reviews for A Thousand Acres

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    Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
    10/18/08
    Washington Post
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    From 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.

    Full Review Source: Slate | comment Comment
    07/03/08
    David Edelstein
    David Edelstein
    Slate

    Cry, cry, cry. Hug, hug, hug. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

    Full Review Source: CNN.com | comment Comment
    07/03/08
    Paul Tatara
    Paul Tatara
    CNN.com
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    All 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.

    Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
    07/03/08
    Channel 4 Film
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Proof that Hollywood no longer knows how to make that former staple, the women's picture.

    Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
    07/03/08
    Maitland McDonagh
    Maitland McDonagh
    TV Guide's Movie Guide

    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.

    Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
    07/03/08
    Godfrey Cheshire
    Godfrey Cheshire
    Variety
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    The story is just an empty, manipulative compilation of tragedies and misunderstandings.

    Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
    07/03/08
    Lisa Alspector
    Lisa Alspector
    Chicago Reader
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    In many ways, it has less in common with Shakespeare's tragedy than with Stephen King's Iowa-set horror story, Children of the Corn.

    Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
    07/03/08
    Rita Kempley
    Rita Kempley
    Washington Post
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    Robards' senile paterfamilias is, regrettably, a grave embarrassment.

    Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
    02/09/06
    Time Out
    Top Critic Icon Top Critic

    No review available.

    comment Comment
    06/23/05
    Jake Euker
    Jake Euker
    F5 (Wichita, KS)

    No review available.

    comment Comment
    06/22/05
    Emanuel Levy
    Emanuel Levy
    EmanuelLevy.Com

    No review available.

    comment Comment
    06/01/05
    Michael Szymanski
    Michael Szymanski
    Zap2it.com

    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.

    Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | comment Comment
    04/09/05
    Laura Clifford
    Laura Clifford
    Reeling Reviews

    ... just doesn’t work.

    Full Review Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | comment Comment
    03/31/05
    Philip Martin
    Philip Martin
    Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

    No review available.

    comment Comment
    01/21/05
    Carol Cling
    Carol Cling
    Las Vegas Review-Journal

    Fans of Jane Smiley's enthralling Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Thousand Acres, will find the movie version disappointing.

    Full Review Source: Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) | comment Comment
    07/01/04
    Judith Egerton
    Judith Egerton
    Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY)

    Great novels are usually adapted into bad movies.

    Full Review Source: rec.arts.movies.reviews | comment Comment
    05/07/04
    Dragan Antulov
    Dragan Antulov
    rec.arts.movies.reviews

    No review available.

    comment Comment
    02/08/04
    Daniel M. Kimmel
    Daniel M. Kimmel
    Worcester Telegram & Gazette

    You'll be shocked to discover how much of the novel's richness has been lost.

    Full Review Source: Palo Alto Weekly | comment Comment
    05/20/03
    Susan Tavernetti
    Susan Tavernetti
    Palo Alto Weekly

    Pfeiffer excepted, the filmmakers reap little from the rich soil they have been handed.

    Full Review Source: Nick's Flick Picks | comment Comment
    01/10/03
    Nick Davis
    Nick Davis
    Nick's Flick Picks
     
     
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