Blu-ray Review - A Thousand Acres
December 28, 2018
Make no mistake, Jocelyn Moorhouse is a very talented filmmaker. She's proved herself with pictures such as "Proof," "How to Make an American Quilt," and the recent Kate Winslet dark comedy, "The Dressmaker." Most helmers have rough patches, and Moorhouse finds hers with 1997's "A Thousand Acres," which not only gives her an impressive cast to manage, but there's the source material, with the feature an adaptation of a 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jane Smiley, which originally attempted to rework the characters and themes of Shakespeare's "King Lear," moving the setting to a family farm in the 1990s. I doubt few directors could successfully carry the pressure to realize a beloved, respected book, but Moorhouse stumbles particularly hard here, showing uncharacteristic ineptitude with performances and basic editing, making a laborious soap opera that's loaded with half-baked drama and characterization. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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