The greatest injury to Shakespeare ever committed

::Spoiler Warning::

The setup was simple and inviting, an old farmer in Iowa loses his land when he hastily gives it away to his daughters. The movie description seemed like an easy to swallow version King Lear, something that I could relax with, snuggle up with a pillow to, and down with a cup of coffee. This is what I was expecting, but not in the least what I received. At the end of the film, I found myself more disturbed than I have been in a long time, with a strong desire to break the DVD that was producing this movie on screen.
This film could quite possibly be one of the greatest injuries to Shakespeare ever committed. Based on a novel by Jane Smiley (even her name is deceiving), A Thousand Acres was, to my borderline comatose state of surprise, actually a Pulitzer Prize winning novel before it was a tragedy of a film. I tired to understand why, in any good conscience, someone would award such a story. The only conclusion I came to was that it was a very bold and very effective deconstruction of a work of Shakespeare, which is something someone should have told me before I watched the film. Rose, Ginny, and Caroline Cook are three daughters of the farmer, Larry Cook. Larry gives his land to Rose and Ginny and decides to let his daughters take care of him, but when Larry starts drinking and driving, he becomes uncontrollable and impossible to live with. Larry soon regrets giving his daughters the land and demands it back. Rose is averse to giving the land back to Larry because of her professed hatred for him. We soon discover her hatred is not without reason, when she reveals to Ginny that Larry had raped her throughout her adolescent years. Bringing up the story to Ginny allows her to remember her own experiences with Larry and realizes that she too had been raped. The girls make a decision to not let him have the land back, and then entire city, including their own husbands turn against them. To top off their pain and oppression, Rose’s husband is killed in a drunk driving accident, she is afflicted with breast cancer, Larry, after moving in with the youngest daughter Caroline, now makes obscene passes at her, the man that Ginny has been having an affair with the entire movie has also been sleeping with Rose, and finally Ginny leaves her husband for no apparent reason other than the fact that he told the truth and “took Caroline’s side” in court when Larry tried to sue his daughters (they won in court anyway) for mistreatment. With all these elements, you could make a great overly dramatic satire of a Lifetime original movie.
As you can see, Smiley completely inverted the intention of the characters in Shakespeare. Instead of the father being oppressed, the “evil sisters” are victimized heroines, an interesting concept, but a terribly executed film. I might have been able to reconsider the idea of deconstructing Shakespeare, putting such a spin, that the intentionality is backwards, but this film didn’t complete the job because the heroines weren’t likeable enough for me to take pity on them. They gave reason for the women to kick out the father; there was no reason why I should like them. Ginny, who was the narrator and focal character of the story cheats on her husband then entire movie, and then leaves her hardworking husband for telling the truth. It is also discovered that Rose has cheated on her husband and lacks all sense of remorse when he dies. Rose’s only main concern and passion throughout the entire film is to get revenge on her father. On her deathbed, her biggest regret was that he never knew that she beat him in court (he went senile in court and lost his mind). How can anyone expect me to support heroines like that?
One response might be, “you aren’t supposed to support one character. Tragedies can have no perfectly good characters, just tragedy – hamlet for example.” I cannot speak for the Pulitzer prize winning novel, for they might very well have written with those exact intentions. The film on the other hand, clearly wants the view to support the main characters, and that is where the problem festers. It reveals so much about the character of the filmmaker. Hardships and persecution allow for liberated feminism, unbarred rebellion and retaliation from everyone. Because they were raped, they have an excuse to remain disloyal in their marriages. Because Rose has cancer, we should rally her in her quest to exact vengeance upon a bad father. She wants blood, and she deserves blood.
This is not a hero one should give sympathy to or support in any instance. Shakespeare would agree. Blind and excessive revenge, unregulated passions, and a lack of integrity and loyalty are never admired in Shakespeare, and shouldn’t be admired in any story. The problem in A Thousand Acres seems to arise out of a hurt soul, who in confusion, thought it a duty or a cause to make heroism out of revenge and malice. It is a shame that we consider this good storytelling, as if all actions are excused if your past is bad enough. That is why, in my book, this film takes the cake as the worst adaptation of Shakespeare ever made.