Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Julianne Moore, David Strathairn, Ron Lea, Arliss Howard, Chloë Sevigny, Louise Fletcher
Director: Scott Elliott
Producers: Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall
Screenplay: Peter Hedges and Polly Platt, based on the novel by Jane Hamilton
Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey
Music: Pat Metheny
U.S. Distributor: First Look Pictures
No one could ever accuse A Map of the World of not throwing enough plot elements in the audience's direction. There's a town's collective grief over the death of a child and a woman's personal guilt about her role in the tragedy. There's the abuse of a little boy. There's a father's inability to cope with two unruly girls who want their mother. There's the way a farming community closes ranks to shut out the outsiders. There's a whiff of infidelity, and a prison drama. And there's a climax that takes place in a courtroom. However, while all of this might have been blended with enough craftsmanship on the written page to form a compelling novel, the movie adaptation of Jane Hamilton's book comes across as fragmented, superficial, and frustrating. By touching briefly upon so much material, it gives nothing its proper due.
Those who have seen Atom Egoyan's masterful The Sweet Hereafter will immediately recognize thematic and plot similarities. However, such a comparison invariably hurts A Map of the World, because this film doesn't come close to The Sweet Hereafter's poignant and powerful exploration of grief, guilt, and loss. We see in the 1997 feature what is missing here - The Sweet Hereafter burrowed deep beneath the surface to uncover the complex and often disturbing implications and ramifications of a tragedy. On the other hand, A Map of the World remains on the surface, offering a dissatisfying and melodramatic tour of similar terrain.
A Map of the World opens in the rural Wisconsin town where Howard and Alice Goodwin (David Strathairn and Sigourney Weaver) are raising their two daughters on a farm. One day, the Goodwins' closest friends, Theresa and Dan Collins (Julianne Moore and Ron Lea) leave their children in Alice's care. Tragedy ensues. While Alice is getting dressed in preparation to take the kids swimming in a nearby lake, Theresa's youngest girl, Lizzy, wanders down to the water, falls in, and drowns. Overwhelmed by grief and remorse, Alice withdraws from herself and the world - so much so that, when the police come to arrest her on the charge of molesting one of the students at the elementary school where she works as a nurse, she offers only token resistance.
The nature of the adaptation is A Map of the World's most evident problem. The movie is not well-constructed or effectively paced, and really can't stand on its own apart from its source material. As a companion piece to the novel, it might work, but, as an independent narrative, it fails to engage the mind or the emotions. Transitions are often confusing and badly handled. In one scene, for example, a character is released from jail and it takes the movie ten minutes before it explains why. The director, Scott Elliott, has previously done work on stage, but this is his first venture into film and his inexperience shows in the way he relies upon overacting and melodramatic music to generate an audience response.
Acting and character development are uneven. In part because of the strength and vitality of the performers, two of the supporting figures are the best realized individuals in the film: Julianne Moore's Theresa and Arliss Howard's Paul Reverdy, Alice's lawyer. Moore makes her grief-stricken mother heartbreakingly real, and Howard turns Reverdy into an inexhaustible man who genuinely enjoys what he's doing. Unfortunately, Sigourney Weaver doesn't fare as well in the leading role. The actress, who is more than capable in action and comedic roles, is woefully inadequate for the dramatic range demanded by this project. As in Death and the Maiden, Weaver's limitations hurt the project. The laconic David Strathairn (recently seen in Limbo) is more effective, but, despite a fair amount of screen time, his character is viewed as tangential to the film's emotional center. Meanwhile, both Chloë Sevigny (Boys Don't Cry), as the possibly abusive mother of the boy who accuses Alice of molestation, and Louise Fletcher, as Howard's mother, are underused.
Despite having been produced by the high-profile team of Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, A Map of the World was ignored by nearly every major distributor. The rights were eventually acquired by First Look Pictures, which hopes to release the film beginning in late January 2000. In an apparent attempt to boost the movie's visibility, talk show host Oprah Winfrey recently named Hamilton's novel as a Bookclub selection The cynical minded movie viewer might suspect Oprah's motives, however, since both her name and images from her TV show are featured prominently throughout the picture. Is this a quid pro quo? Regardless, all the marketing can't obscure the simple fact that A Map of the World is rich in themes, but poor in execution.
© 2000 James Berardinelli