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 1,000 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 realising 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.
Product Identifiers
EAN
5050582794861
eBay Product ID (ePID)
102185752
Product Key Features
Film/TV Title
A Thousand Acres
Actor
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michelle Pfeiffer, Michelle Williams, Kevin Anderson, Colin Firth, Keith Carradine, Jessica Lange, Pat Hingle, Jason Robards
Director
Jocelyn Moorhouse
Format
DVD
Language
English
Release Year
2011
Genre
Drama, General
Run Time
101 Mins
Additional Product Features
Certificate
15
Number of Discs
1
Country/Region of Manufacture
United States of America
Reviews
New York Times - Michelle Pfeiffer delivers impressively cold fury..., Entertainment Weekly - Somehow it's wonderful seeing luminous Lange, feisty Pfeiffer and smoldering Leigh all on one screen...
Author
Jane Smiley
Consumer Advice
Contains strong language and moderate sex references