Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

halaphoto As much of this movie was filmed in my local area with a few miles of where I live I was very excited to see it when it came out. The cast all did a terrific job and I find no fault with any of their performances. The movie started out really great but soon slipped into a dreary and depressing darkness of a rather sick plot that just seemed to get more depressing as it went along. I guess the book that it was based on was supposed to be pretty good, but can truly say I have no interest in reading it if it is anything at all like the flick. Iwas very happy to leave the theater, and had/have no desire ever to see the movie again even though many of the place sets were local and familiar. Not even that is worth watching this very well acted, but bad movie.

ninja77 SPOILERS... I had just finished this excellent book and was excited about seeing the film. In particular I was looking for resonant scenes like Larry's kitchen cabinets left out in the rain, the building chemistry between Ginny and Jess, the mounting sense of loss felt by Ginny when each of her family members betrays her, particularly the last wounding blow from Rose. The film rushes from scene to scene, never giving any moment time to resonate with emotion. The result is the feeling that you don't get to know or care about any of the characters. In the book I felt sorrow and shock when Pete died, in spite of his many flaws. In the film he is about as two-dimensional as you can get. Jessica Lange has chops as an actress and could have made Ginny into the sympathetic character she is in the book. Unfortunately, the screenplay and direction didn't allow for it. The film feels mechanical, almost like you can picture the director checking off each scene in her to-do list. Make the breast cancer known, check. Show attraction between Ginny and Jess by having him touch her neck, check. Show Larry deciding to give up the farm, check. I agree with those who said it felt like a Lifetime special. I'm disappointed because the actors are top-notch, especially the freakishly gorgeous Michelle Pfeifer and the criminally under-rated Jennifer Jason Leigh. The land was just as much a character in the book as any of the people, and I wonder what the director could have been thinking by not showing this more. In the end you feel like the sexual abuse and the death of a sister are manipulative plot devices to jerk out the tears. I blame the direction and the screenplay adaptation. Terrence Mallick could have done justice to this great book. I wonder what Jane Smiley thought.

MetaLark **** Possible Spoiler **** If you were making a serious movie involving a powerful, but aging father with three apparently ungrateful daughters, featuring actors of the highest caliber, with great cinematography and a beautiful Midwestern setting, now where would you go with it? Why, you'd fashion a modern tragedy after "King Lear" of course.That's what I was expecting. That certainly wasn't what I got. What I got was 105 minutes of feminist tripe--one long harangue about man's inhumanity to woman. Why, there wasn't a decent male in the entire story. You see early on where this film might be headed, but you can't believe anyone would waste all these fine actors and craftsmen on that trite scenario--you just want them to get on with the King Lear theme. But it never happens; and there's the real tragedy if you ask me.Aside from the panorama of glorious rural heartland, about the only thing worth watching in this film was that wonderful chameleon, British actor Colin Firth, practicing his Midwestern accent. Now there was a treat.3/10

IKeiller Given the way the film begins - lots of slow tracking shots of the thousand acres - I expected this to be a dull but worthy effort only brightened by Michelle Pfeiffer (the reason I bought the tape). To an extent this was true - Pfeiffer's character was by far the most interesting. Her anger throughout, although utterly justified, carried an air of self-destruction and manipulation that made the story most watchable. There were points when I wondered if the film was going to miss any tragedian tricks (perhaps I mean soap opera headlines: death, abandonment, loss with no true deliverance, etc), but it was the believability of Pfeiffer and the ugly familiness achieved by the rest of the cast that carried it, showing peaks of humanity through the weight of the film's atmosphere.