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.
