This movie could have been handled with a lot more depth. The first hour or so is well done, but then it becomes another B-movie tear-jerker, so much Hollywood fluff. A Map Of The World is the story of a married mother of two on a Wisconsin farm who suffers terribly when, while babysitting her best friend's two children, one of them wanders off and accidentally drowns in a pond on their property, after which she is charged with child abuse (in an unrelated incident) on her job as a school nurse and the confluence of events turn her quiet farm life upside down.
I thought Sig Weaver gave a generally good performance as the mom in trouble, considering the script she had to work with, which is mostly banal trash. David Straithairn is reliably good as usual as the put-upon husband. I guess Julianne Moore has the best moment in the film, after playing it brave-faced at the death of her daughter, she is found by Weaver in the woods having a private breakdown. It's a great piece of acting and very touching, but it's only great compared to the rest of the movie. Straight-up, it's not all that good.
The biggest problem here is the script. Some of the situations and dialogue are fraudulent, and characters aren't really developed. Chloe Sevigny plays basically a cardboard cut-out of a sleazy bimbo (she might as well have just had it stamped on her forehead for all the script gives her to do), and in one scene Julianne Moore's husband is overheard in an angry tantrum because Straithairn and his kids were in their house visiting, but then, I wondered, how did he feel about HER going over THERE. It isn't really explored. I also didn't get some of what Weaver's character was doing - the "let's let Oprah decide" speech, or one scene when Straithairn visits her in prison and she's making a lot of rambling small talk and doesn't ask about the kids - the insensitivity seems totally out of character. I didn't believe it for a second when the black women who were needling her in the cellblock "came around" at the end, the scene where Straithairn and Moore kiss I saw coming a mile away, and for the creme de la creme of tawdry Hollywood BS endings, when Moore's character turns up pregnant at the end of the movie, it is the ultimate in cheap, slapdash, feel-good garbage. Oh, well, drown one baby, make another. This is the sort of thing that screenwriters love because it provides a neat and happy resolution to everything, when, in fact, there is never a resolution to losing a child. If you remove Miss Weaver's occasional nudity, this thing could play forever on Lifetime channel. In spite of some strong efforts by the actors, A Map Of The World is junk, irredeemable junk. 2** out of 4
I thought Sig Weaver gave a generally good performance as the mom in trouble, considering the script she had to work with, which is mostly banal trash. David Straithairn is reliably good as usual as the put-upon husband. I guess Julianne Moore has the best moment in the film, after playing it brave-faced at the death of her daughter, she is found by Weaver in the woods having a private breakdown. It's a great piece of acting and very touching, but it's only great compared to the rest of the movie. Straight-up, it's not all that good.
The biggest problem here is the script. Some of the situations and dialogue are fraudulent, and characters aren't really developed. Chloe Sevigny plays basically a cardboard cut-out of a sleazy bimbo (she might as well have just had it stamped on her forehead for all the script gives her to do), and in one scene Julianne Moore's husband is overheard in an angry tantrum because Straithairn and his kids were in their house visiting, but then, I wondered, how did he feel about HER going over THERE. It isn't really explored. I also didn't get some of what Weaver's character was doing - the "let's let Oprah decide" speech, or one scene when Straithairn visits her in prison and she's making a lot of rambling small talk and doesn't ask about the kids - the insensitivity seems totally out of character. I didn't believe it for a second when the black women who were needling her in the cellblock "came around" at the end, the scene where Straithairn and Moore kiss I saw coming a mile away, and for the creme de la creme of tawdry Hollywood BS endings, when Moore's character turns up pregnant at the end of the movie, it is the ultimate in cheap, slapdash, feel-good garbage. Oh, well, drown one baby, make another. This is the sort of thing that screenwriters love because it provides a neat and happy resolution to everything, when, in fact, there is never a resolution to losing a child. If you remove Miss Weaver's occasional nudity, this thing could play forever on Lifetime channel. In spite of some strong efforts by the actors, A Map Of The World is junk, irredeemable junk. 2** out of 4