Review: A Map of the World

Alice Goodwin (Sigourney Weaver) is a wife and mother and a city dweller who now finds herself in rural Wisconsin to help her husband Howard (David Strathairn) run his "working" farm. They are, as she acknowledges, outsiders and Howard's mother Nellie (Louise Fletcher), whose strings he is still very much attached to, refers to the whole enterprise as his social experiment.

The Goodwins pretty much keep to themselves. Howard barely involves himself in the running of his household and the raising of his children, preferring to leave those duties to Alice so that he can concentrate on working the land. Alice is a bit overwhelmed - her house is strewn with toys and such and while she enjoys her youngest daughter, she can't quite manage her tantrum-throwing eldest Emma (Daria Perlmutter), who is prone to declaring her hate for her mother and breaking a dish or two when she doesn't get her way. In contrast, Alice's only friend Theresa (Julianne Moore) has it all under control: her daughters are lovely and well-behaved and her house looks as if no children lived there at all.

One day, while Theresa's kids are in Alice's care, tragedy strikes without warning. Alice was to take all the girls swimming in their pond. When she returns downstairs from changing into her bathing suit, Theresa's youngest daughter Lizzy is gone. When Alice finds her, Lizzy is floating face down in the pond. The girl cannot be saved and Theresa and her husband are as inconsolable as Alice is distraught. At Lizzy's funeral reception, a reluctant Alice believes they're all whispering and blaming her. When Howard tries to make her move forward, she shouts, "Don't force me!"

One night soon thereafter, she finds a grief-stricken Theresa sobbing in the woods. Though Theresa knows that it was a cruel twist of fate, she can't help but feel a bit of anger towards Alice. "There's nothing to say. It's hard for me to see you right now… I know you're sorry, Alice. I'm even sorry you're sorry. But it doesn't do me any good right now." A Map of the World could have used more scenes between Alice and Theresa as their relationship, once defined by blind trust, becomes a minefield of push and pull emotions. Jane Hamilton's novel and screenwriters Peter Hedges and Polly Platt, however, choose to have Theresa go off on a recuperatory vacation and focus on Alice, who quickly unravels not only from this tragedy but from the trouble that awaits her.

Alice is taken to court but not for Lizzy's death. Carole Mackessy (a pungent Chloe Sevigny), the parent of a young boy who is a frequent visitor to Alice's nurse's office at the elementary school, accuses her of sexual misconduct. Alice is thrown in jail, Howard is forced to assume her duties and her lawyer Paul Reverdy (Arliss Howard) marvels at Alice's seamless adjustment to prison. For Alice, who has been trying to have a complete nervous breakdown without anyone interrupting her, it's a way for her to take her punishment and shut up about it.

The brilliance of Weaver's gutsy performance is the ambiguities she emphasizes in Alice. Is jail really a way for her to take a vacation from her life? Doe she love her family even if she wishes her husband would pay more attention to the difficulties she's having running their home? Alice is all jagged edges - she can be immensely selfish and abrasive and she has a way of telling truths, which offend people. Weaver puts all of these qualities center stage and dares to make Alice unlikeable.

Theater director Scott Elliott, who makes his film debut, wisely keeps the narrative simple and uncluttered and allows Weaver and Moore to propel the drama. A Map of the World is not especially revelatory but it is elevated by its extraordinary actresses, both of whom demonstrate the frailties of being human - that we are all capable of making mistakes that we cannot ever correct, that there are things beyond both our control and understanding.

A Map of the World

Directed by: Scott Elliott

Written by: Peter Hedges, Polly Platt; based on the novel by Jane Hamilton

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Julianne Moore, David Strathairn, Chloe Sevigny, Louise Fletcher, Arliss Howard, Sara Rue, Aunjanue Ellis, Nicole Ari Parker