Review: A 'World' of woe

Gripping moments, disappointments highlight film

By Reviewer Paul Tatara

February 11, 2000
Web posted at: 4:51 p.m. EST (2151 GMT)

(CNN) -- Stage director Scott Elliot has turned Jane Hamilton's 1994 novel, "A Map of the World," into a heartfelt little movie with moments of great power. But, gripping scenes aside, Elliot cheats you in the end, shuttling his furious main character off screen when she's needed there most.

That's Sigourney Weaver's character, whose all-important flash of self-knowledge occurs off camera. That's no fair. There's no measurable evidence of her emotional growth, just a flowery voice-over at the end of the film that hips you to the idea that what you just watched was some kind of transformation.

If ever a character needed transforming, Weaver's Alice Goodwin is it. She is an over-burdened, perplexed mother of two who passes through a series of traumas that would leave anybody gasping.

Her somewhat dim husband, Howard (David Straithairn), has given up city life to become a dairy farmer. Alice tries to run the household while also holding down a job as an elementary school nurse. She has two young daughters, Claire and Emma (Kayla and Dara Perlmutter). Claire, the younger, is an angel; Emma torments her mother with vicious glee.

The early scenes are beautifully executed. Alice grows increasingly exasperated with the children at school, as well as with her hateful child. You can feel the strain mounting in Alice; Weaver's skinny frame seems on the verge of cracking from the pressure. So Alice vents in the only way she can, making harsh statements to her co-workers about some of the children at school -- understandable, under the circumstances, but still mean.

Adding to the pressure: Howard's mother (Louise Fletcher), who views her daughter-in-law as a well-meaning, impatient screw-up.

Depression, then jail

Alice would certainly blow a gasket if it weren't for the friendship she and Howard share with Theresa and Dan Collins (Julianne Moore and Ron Lea). Theresa and Dan also have two young daughters. But, unlike the harried dairy farmer's wife, Theresa is something of a miracle mom, and Alice openly marvels at her friend.

Moore, the most maternal of actresses, cares for her family, keeps the house clean and takes care of the kids. She plays the mom anyone would want -- saintly, understanding, a baker of great pies. All is well for Theresa, until a life-changing tragedy blindsides her and Alice.

Theresa's younger daughter wanders off and drowns in the farm's pond when Alice is supposed to be watching her. Theresa is emotionally shattered but understanding; the death, she reasons, couldn't be blamed on her friend's overt negligence. Maybe not, but that event proves to be the nudge that sends Alice plummeting into the deepening despair, which has been yawning before her for the entire film. Profoundly depressed, she withdraws from her family.

Then, just when it seems things couldn't get worse, Alice faces accusations of child molestation. A trashy mother (Chloe Sevigney, at her slatternly best) of one of the schoolchildren levels the charges against Alice. They're obviously trumped up -- Alice has had angry words with the mother before -- but the cops come knocking anyway. They cart Alice off to the county lockup while Howard is left to handle the farm and the kids.

Eventually, he'll have to auction off everything to make the $100,000 bail. As a special bonus, the townspeople have taken to spitting at him and spray-painting hateful graffiti on the family's farmhouse.

Incarceration vacation

Sounds like fun, doesn't it? You have to give everyone involved (including mega-producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, who usually gravitate toward far more commercial material) a lot of credit for attempting to tell such a depressing story.

The scenes leading up to Alice's jailing are easily the best in the film, too. But, once she's behind bars, it seems that Elliot and the screenwriters aren't sure what point they're trying to make. Like Alice, they don't go anywhere.

The jail also is something of a surprise. It looks a lot less hellish than you're expecting, and Alice takes to life behind bars like stripes to a prison tunic. She gets a perverse thrill out of this little holiday away from her motherly burden, something that may actually be in Hamilton's novel but seems unlikely when you consider the situation.

She slowly grows friendly with a couple of the incarcerated women, but even they aren't all that threatening. They wield illiterate sarcasm instead of knives.

At the same time, Elliot crosscuts inelegantly between Alice's jail cell and a halting flirtation between Howard and Theresa. Then the flirtation gets short shrift when Alice enters into her humdrum trial.

So it's a mixed verdict, this film, but the stuff that works is occasionally spectacular. Weaver gives one of the best performances of her career, and the entire cast is up to the challenge.

It's too bad that the story just sort of trails off into the mist. For a movie that contains so much sheer antagonism, the wrapup is inappropriately benign. It's a map lacking direction.

"A Map of the World" contains bad language, talk of child molestation, one scene of morbid almshouses, and an unexpected amount of nudity on Weaver's part. Don't look for a board game based on the movie. Rated R. 125 minutes.

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