Written by Jane Hamilton, Peter Hedges, and Polly Platt
Directed by Scott Elliott

Small towns are quite a different existence than cities or suburbia. There’s a certain flow associated with these places, where people move in and out on a regular basis. You might be “the new kid in town” for a time, but that doesn’t last too long. In general, when it comes to small towns, the story is very different. I’ve lived here many years and I know people who have lived here longer than I who are still considered newcomers to the area or “outsiders”. There are certain family names that are all over the place for being pillars of the community and highly regarded.

In A Map of the World, Alice and Howard Goodwin (portrayed by Sigourney Weaver and David Strathairn) have moved to a small-town farm to raise their two daughters. Their best friends are their neighbors Dan and Theresa (portrayed by Ron Lea and Julianne Moore). They do things for each other like watch each other’s kids. The two families are quite close and intertwined in each other’s lives.

Alice is under pressure, though, and might have taken on more than she can handle. The pressures of raising a family, coupled with the obligations of a farm, compounded with a job as the local elementary school nurse have her on the edge. She seeks perfection in everything she does and has the highest standards not just for herself but for those around her as well.

Just as the summer begins, Alice agrees to watch Theresa’s daughters. The youngest goes missing, and Alice finds her floating in the pond on the farm. After a drawn-out vigil by her bedside, the child dies. This devastates Alice. She can’t bring herself to go to Theresa’s house and runs out of the funeral service. She barely gets out of bed and Howard’s mother comes to run the house for them.

Alice is devastated and guilt-ridden because she knows the standards she has are terribly high. She expects perfection from herself and would never be able to muster up forgiveness for the lack of perfection on Theresa’s part if the situation were reversed. To complicate matters even further, social services interview her about a child in the school, and what Alice says along with her actions and demeanor draw attention to her. She is arrested for child abuse.

The problem is Alice is not only an outsider to the townsfolk, but she is outspoken as to what she believes are the shortcomings of the various residents of the town. Her comments made in jest come back to haunt her with the child abuse charge, and soon she is public enemy number one in the eyes of the town. Left to rot in jail while she awaits the trial, she actually finds more comfort there than at home. Her outspoken and rather blunt nature fits in better with the inmates than it does in the small-town world she’s being forced out of.

Compounding that is the husband who seems oblivious to what’s going on. Howard’s head is buried deep in the farm work, and he doesn’t see that cleaning up a spill or taking care of the girls (or disciplining them) would ease the burden Alice bears. When Alice is wracked with guilt about the child’s death and trying to just get out of bed, he simplifies everything and then thinks having sex will make everything okay. Their roles are somewhat reversed once she is in jail.

The story in A Map of the World is a complicated one, and it takes a trio of brilliant actors to really pull it off. Sigourney Weaver is wonderful as Alice. She’s got the brash, loud personality down pat. It’s one that grates on everyone except her best friend. When that support is taken away just when she needs it the most, Alice has no one to turn to just when she needs it the most. Theresa is the one person in the town Alice can be herself with and let her guard down.

David Strathairn is excellent as the husband who is happy in his life and clueless as to why his wife wouldn’t be. He loves her and loves their life and doesn’t understand why the two aren’t in synch. When there’s a problem he ignores it and she takes care of it. It’s only when she is no longer able to take care of everything that he grudgingly sees things differently. His first solution of bringing in his mother to help doesn’t go so well as both of them seem to be ganging up on Alice with the notion that she should just get up and go on about her life and stop feeling sorry for herself. He is truly lost in his marriage but just doesn’t realize it as long as things are okay on his end.

As Alice’s best friend, Julianne Moore gives a fine performance. She doesn’t get quite the screen time as the rest of the cast but manages to show her acceptance of Alice in a way the rest of the town doesn’t. Even after her daughter dies, Theresa is mourning the loss of a friend as well. She can’t just forget they were ever friends and walk away like her husband seems to do. Moore is great at portraying Theresa’s angst not just over her daughter’s death but for what is happening to the woman many people in the small town feel is responsible.

There are a few holes in the story. Honestly, watching Alice’s oldest daughter, she’s a brat, and I have a special needs child who doesn’t act out the way this child does. The idea seems to be the common misconception that children act out and parents do nothing except feel guilty that they are angry when the kids deliberately misbehave and provoke. She does things like throw her breakfast on the floor because her mother put milk in it when she didn’t want her to, and encourages her sister to put coins in her mouth. The child needed a good bit of discipline, but instead of saying that, it seemed like the tone of the story was to cast Alice in an evil light simply because she would feel like giving her daughter a heavy dose of that discipline.

The story flows pretty well. There are a few moments where the story seems fractured, usually involving flashbacks of Alice’s interaction with the child she is accused of abusing. There are no excuses for the actions Alice finally remembers and confesses to, but it’s not quite the heinous acts she has been accused of. The movie does feel a bit long at just over two hours total, but since it’s character-driven, for the most part, I didn’t find myself checking my watch. It’s not like one of those special-effect-driven films where the parts in between plod along until the next dose of effects. I had to keep myself glued to gather all of the details of the story. The cinematography makes the picture a visual treat as well.

Unfortunately, the ending seems well, unsatisfying. That’s the best way I can put it. It seemed like there were more questions than answers and it was hard to understand how I was supposed to feel about Alice and her situation near at the end of the film. Perhaps I was supposed to have ambiguous feelings, but more than that it felt like there should be more there before the film actually ended. That said, with the film already as long as it was I am sure there was a reason for this. However, it felt like the story was cut off too soon.

A Map of the World is not a day-brightening film. It’s a rather depressing picture as a family becomes fractured under the pressures of small-town life as well as the mother’s own perfection. The performances are first-rate and for that reason and the good story, I recommend it. Just don’t go in expecting the film to be something it isn’t. Remember, small-town life takes a certain adjustment when you’re moving out of the city.


SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Theatrical Trailer
• Featurette
• Cast & Filmmaker Biographies