Book & Film Reviews: A Map of the World & Disobedience

A Map of the World & Disobedience, Novels by Jane Hamilton
A Map of the World, Directed by Scott Elliott


September 15, 2002


Jane Hamilton’s second novel, A Map of the World got a lot of press when Oprah Winfrey mentioned it on her show a few years back so maybe you’ve heard of it. I always liked like the clarity and the attention to detail in Hamilton’s books; her intelligent narrators make these honest, truthful observations of common everyday middle-class life that allow people like ourselves to completely identify with these decent but troubled characters. Much of Hamilton’s narrative is internal and I’d say 70% of her books take place in her characters’ thoughts. Reading pages of flashbacks and memories isn’t always easy to do and once in a while the reader longs for something, anything to take place. But within the context of what they’re going through (a teen learns of his mother’s infidelity, a family is turned on by their entire town), it’s appropriate that they spend more time living within their own minds rather than the real world; they’re outsiders who have no one to turn to. Also somewhat distracting from her usually strong stories is Hamilton’s seeming obsession with her minor characters’ physical flaws. In A Map of the World, at least, main character Alice often notes or points out minor deformities that everyday people would possess. While it’s perhaps in character that someone as neurotic and honest as Alice would notice these deficiencies, she often comes across as a snob (something I don’t believe the author ever intended her to be) and makes for occasionally unpleasant reading. Regardless, I recommend Hamilton’s three novels (The Book of Ruth, A Map of the World and Disobedience) to everyone.

In A Map of the World, two families (each with two young girls) live in the same small Midwestern state and seem to be each other’s only friends. One Monday morning, Theresa drops off her kids at Alice and Howard Goodwin’s just like she always does and before leaving them in their care, promises to pick her girls up before supper. In the blink of an eye, a random tragedy occurs, one that certainly wasn’t intentional but perhaps could have been prevented by trivially just altering one’s location in the space of five minutes; Alice finds one of Theresa’s girls face down in her pond. Theresa is devastated and drops out of the book for a month. Alice, who the town silently decides should be punished for what transpired, drops out of her own life and goes weeks without talking to anyone or even getting out of bed. Only at night does she leave her house, constantly drawn to the very place where all their lives were altered forever: the pond. It’s there that Alice re-imagines what happened over and over, begs to be able to take it all back and communes with the lost girl Lizzy. It’s her conversations with the dead girl that are the book’s most emotional moments (“That’s your house right over there…”).

In the book’s second act, not happy with the lack of criminal charges brought up against Alice in the child’s death, the town’s mothers come up with their own punishment and together falsely accuses her of something so atrocious, she gets carted off to jail immediately. As her husband Howard struggles with the impossible task of managing their farm and looking after their two girls, he’s ostracized by the town in ways that recall the Salem witch trials. But having to drive 20 miles out of town to simply buy bread and milk is the least of his worries; their farm is faltering, his already troubled wife is spending months in the county jail and neither of them know where they’ll come up with the money for bail, court costs or lawyers. A surprisingly forgiving Theresa shows up at book’s middle and seems to be able to offer both of them different kinds of support to get them each through the ordeal.

Considering the somewhat scholarly nature of Hamilton’s writing, I feared the film version of A Map of the World would be a disaster. Specifically, I couldn’t understand how the character Theresa could survive the translation. In the book, after her daughter’s death, she deals with her grief in two ways: through religion and by keeping a forward momentum that’s so continuous she seems never to stop talking once she’s started. In the book, neither comes across as annoying and both are believable. Religion was important to her from the very start and after a meeting with an old friend of hers (a priest who has since left the church), her beliefs become even more grounded as she concentrates on keeping the memory of Lizzy alive and tries to overcome any sense of blame regarding the tragedy. When Alice and Theresa unexpectedly run into each other at the pond one night, Theresa admits to missing Alice as much as she does her own daughter. It’s a transcendent moment, another of the book’s highlights. As for her constant chatter, the reader is so happy to have Theresa back in the story that we appreciate hearing what she has to say about everything that’s going on, we want to know what her viewpoint on all of this is.

I needn’t have worried about that portrayal; Julianne Moore is perfect as Theresa and brings to life everything we liked about her in the book. The film’s screenplay has severely but wisely trimmed her long outbursts but the spirit of the character remains. Surprisingly, it’s David Strathairn as Howard that’s the disaster. In the book, he was strong and rugged, someone who took great pride in owning 400 acres and working that land to provide for his family. He was a man of very few words and mostly dirty all the time. Strathairn’s Howard is a complete wimp. First of all, he presents himself as way too clean cut for us to ever believe that he goes near a tractor much less remove 30 acres of rock in the course of two months. His mannerisms indicate weakness and a willingness to concede to everyone else’s wishes. Verbally, he seems to be apologizing for the very things he’s saying before he even finishes a sentence. Once, and only once, Howard (overcome by all that’s been thrust upon him) tells one of his daughters to “shut up.” It’s a strong moment in the book because we’re watching the beginnings of an absolutely decent and rational man come apart. In the film, the “shut up,” is a whine more suited to a television sitcom. Strathairn is a darn good actor but has misinterpreted the character completely. One wishes director Scott Elliott had stepped in and offered suggestion because it harms the film almost beyond repair.

Sigourney Weaver is by all means strong and smart enough to portray Alice but her performance is all over the place. In too many scenes, she seems to be going out of her way to affect the mannerisms of what she perceives as ‘normal’ blue-collar behavior. Later in the film, her outrageously calm behavior in prison almost comes across as silly. Granted, the character is almost impossible to present as written; Alice goes from everyday normality on through deadening guilt, depression, a nervous breakdown and then the indignities of jail life all in the course of 400 pages. In the film, Weaver is at her best when silent, showing all the above with utter clarity in facial expressions alone.

In fact, the whole film takes the book too literal; there can’t be 100 words spoken that don’t come directly from Hamilton’s prose. Amazingly enough, I think the film would have been better served if screenwriters Peter Hedges and Polly Platt had embellished a bit. What works well on the page hardly ever works when translated directly to another medium. While this faithfulness and respect for the film’s original source is commendable, it doesn’t make for satisfying viewing; both Hamilton and her fans would have been better served with some insightful tinkering.

The screenplay and direction is sloppy in other ways, as well. Watching Weaver and Strathairn act as parents often felt inaccurate. In one scene, Weaver stops her younger daughter from eating pennies, takes away the coins and then places them two feet away from the child onto the coffee table before leaving the room. In another scene, Strathairn takes away a knife their daughter is playing with and then places it two feet away from the child onto the kitchen table before leaving the room. Acting as a witness for Alice in court, Theresa admits that she would again entrust her one surviving daughter with an unchaperoned Alice when earlier in the film she wouldn’t let the girl sleep over the Goodwin’s after the death of Lizzy. But the film never makes it clear if she’s lying for Alice’s sake or has made an important turnaround. The prison environment towards the end is a joke, seemingly no more threatening than your average day at high school; putting up with the constant sassing of inmates is about as bad as it gets, the film suggest. And above everything else, did this movie need to make so many references to Oprah Winfrey? I know this book was championed by Winfrey on her show and thus is responsible for getting it into more readers’ hands than Hamilton ever thought possible. But to show or mention Winfrey five times in the course of two hours is too much to bear. When one character eventually admits that she’s patterned her whole life on Winfrey’s, I couldn’t help but giggle.

The film isn’t all bad. Arliss Howard as Alice’s lawyer Reverdy (named Paul Rafferty in the book) is mostly a joy to watch despite the insistence of the film that he’s simply comic relief. A smart man in a small town, Reverdy makes short work of the accusatory liars and takes great glee in doing so; his scenes toward the end provide a very downbeat film with some much needed kick. Although seemingly doing a perfect Kevin Spacey imitation throughout, he gets away with this bold move on talent alone and is the highlight of the movie. In fact, Strathairn’s eventual announcement that Reverdy “makes him sick,” just as the lawyer is about to get his wife acquitted shocks us but is never explained and serves as another example of the screenplay’s laziness. The director also at least tries to embrace some of the book’s flashbacks by showing them reeling through the minds of his characters in a grainy home movie-type of format. It’s not terribly original but it does get the point across that there’s much more going on in these peoples’ thoughts aside from what we see them doing in the cold light of day.

With much more hard work and some better interpretation, A Map of the World could have been resplendent. As such, it’s not the disaster I feared but is barely mediocre. I can’t recommend it to anyone.

The Hamilton adaptation I’m most looking forward to is that of her last novel Disobedience. In fact, I think it would make such a splendid film that I may start writing the screenplay myself.

The book begins simply enough when teenager Henry mistakenly reads his mother Beth’s AOL email and discovers that she’s having an affair with a minor friend of the family’s. Not sure what to do with this information, Henry keeps quiet about the infidelity and instead silently watches how this secret continual indiscretion subtlety impacts the entire family. Watching his close knit family almost come apart while dealing with his own feelings of guilt and his mother’s perceived betrayal provides this short 300 page novel with it’s main conflict. Complicating Henry’s emotions even further is good friend Karen, who’s alarmingly taking to feminism in almost a militant fashion and the meeting of a first true love at a camp that his family attends every year. About to enter college, Henry’s at that age where nothing makes sense and no one seems to be getting with the program.

From the outside, the Shaws seem the perfect family. Parents Beth and Kevin seemingly carefree and open nature and their love of the arts suggest that they were 60’s hippies who took the most positive aspects of that counter culture to heart and decided to build an entire family on simple peace, love and understanding. Beth is a orchestral pianist who contributes to soundtracks of Ken Burn’s documentaries on the side. Kevin teaches history, a subject he loves almost as much as his family. By far the most interesting character is thirteen year old daughter Elvira, a girl so obsessed with the Civil War that she disguises herself as a boy just to take place in their state’s reenactments of that war. She’s such an infinitely interesting character that she deserves an entire novel unto herself.

Before long, we get the gist of the entire book: every one in this family is faking it, lying as much to themselves as to each other. Beth’s lies are obvious but no more damaging to the family than Kevin’s continued pretence that all is fine or even young Elvira’s abandoning her entire gender alltogether. Observing all of this but never uttering a word to anyone, Henry is perhaps the biggest offender by simply deciding to keep quiet in the hopes of quelling the rapidly approaching conflagration.

Disobedience’s strengths is both it’s focus on a family in modern society (Beth’s reliance on her computer working properly enough to receive her lover’s email, her weekly women’s group discussing the latest Oprah book) and past traditional, perhaps more simpler times (Beth’s lover living in a cabin he built himself in the woods, the simple joy she gets from playing the piano for small gatherings of friends). As in A Map of the World, these are all highly intelligent, confident and decent people we’re introduced to. But their flaws and the way they try to rise above make them both accessible and sympathetic. When something comes close to harming a member of this family at book’s end, it’s Beth who makes a stand, who bares her teeth like a lioness and lets it be known that no one messes with this family, that those who try will do so over her dead body. Despite her romantic wanderings, it’s her family that was always foremost in her mind.

A Map of the World book: Recommended.
A Map of the World film: ** out of ****
Disobedience: Highly recommended.