Responses to this message:
I actually used to depend on this forum and Mr. Cranky's reviews to keep me away from the really lousy movies. Although Mr. Cranky trashes everything, his trashing is usually right-on-the-money for the really lousy movies. In this case, I don't even know whether he really even saw the move because his review is lacking in almost as much substance as the movie.
My wife and I have a deal. For every movie that we see that has guys blowing things up and retrograde adolescent humor, we also see one three-hanky movie. A Thousand Acres was her revenge on me for George of the Jungle. I was a little worried when we walked into the theater and I noticed that I was only one of three or four men, all of whom were accompanied by wives or girl friends, and all of whom had that same long-suffering look that I see on the faces of husbands who accompany their wives to fabric stores.
But this was worse! I have only walked out on three or four movies in my life. If I hadn't been with my wife, I would have walked on on A Thousand Acres.
This movie has been compared to King Lear--wrongly. Rather, this movie is a deliberately deconstructionist parody that turns King Lear on its head. Where King Lear is a drama of redemption, this is a drama of hopelessness, hate and nihilism. Every character in Lear is deliberately turned into its opposite, with Lear himself being changed from a character who undergoes transformation and conversion to a character who is irredeemably evil and cruel.
There is literally not a single positive male character in this movie, and the message of the movie seems to be that allmen are either verbally, physically and sexually abusive fathers, drunken irresponsible wife-beating husbands, work-obsessed insensitive husbands, or love 'em and leave 'em hunks. This movie hates men with a passion. What a waste of the talents of Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jason Robards!
In addition to being cynical and nihilistic, the plot was contrived, melodramatic and manipulative. At one point, I actually began trying to anticipate which disaster would happen next and which man would next turn out to be a soul-destroying bastard. It kept me amused for awhile.
At the end of the movie, Michelle Pfeiffer gives a death bed speech in which she says something like, "I've haven't accomplished much with my life but I haven't forgiven the unforgivable. . . . It's better to die hating than to forgive." This is a perfect review of the movie. It doesn't accomplish much. It's unforgivable. I hated it until the end.
Responses to this message:
Post a response to this discussion thread