Based on Jane Smiley's novel, this 1997 movie tells the story of an Iowa farm family consisting of an aging patriarch, three grown daughters, and their husbands and children. The tale is loosely based on Shakespeare's "King Lear," although the central characters are Ginny (Lange) and Rose (Pfeiffer), the Regan and Goneril surrogates who command sympathy, while Caroline the youngest is a side character and rather unpleasant. The cast mostly acts up a storm, but the plotting and script are little more than movie-of-the-week quality, with stock figures (the Angry Sister, the Runaway Sister, the Sister in Denial, the Abusive Husband, etc.) and familiar plot devices (courtroom drama, breast cancer, farmboy lover, childhood sex abuse).
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The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus
