A Thousand Acres as Movie is Melodramatic and Bogus Essay

A Thousand Acres as Movie is Melodramatic and Bogus nbsp; Perhaps Jane Smileys Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Thousand Acres was a bit over-rated. For one thing, the books dark secret seemed utterly implausible. I just didnt believe that the books protagonist and narrator, a 37-year-old Iowa farm wife named Ginny, could have completely repressed the fact that her father had sex with her when she was 15 years old, night after night, for a year. For True Believers in Repressed Memory Syndrome, this might sound like gospel: I found it melodramatic and bogus. Furthermore, the sensitive-unto-death narrative voice was dissonant and grating: Ginny came across as too intelligent and self-aware to be as clueless and numb as she†¦show more content†¦Above all, they play it too safe. Perhaps if they had added new material, approached Smileys story from different directions, they could have made a film that would have been truer to the spirit, if not the letter, of her book. Ploddingly literal, A Thousand Acres is basically a star vehicle that relies on superior acting to redeem it. It does have superior acting, but thats not nearly enough. nbsp; The story involves a tyrannical old patriarch, Larry Cook (Jason Robards, whose skills are not really utilized), who, apparently forgetting the unpleasant fate that befell Lear, decides to give his farm away to his three daughters -- Ginny (Jessica Lange), Rose (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Caroline (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Larry -- Lear; Ginny -- Goneril; Rose -- Regan; Caroline -- Cordelia. Get it? But Smiley turns that phallocentric old fable on its politically incorrect head: Instead of being hounded to madness and despair by evil children, this patriarch is the evil one, a rigid, remorseless old man who, we learn, seduced not just Ginny but Rose, too. And he doesnt need to be driven to madness: He goes pretty much off the deep end, for reasons that are never explained, right after he gives away his property. nbsp; Ginny and Rose, like their horrific Shakespearean namesakes,