the story be derive from king lear while the setting be a farm in iowa . here a test for this kind of thing represent if you find yourself ask and why do so and so do such and such and and the answer be and because that what happen in king lear and you know that the film have fail . well and that be what happen here . the father figure in this story isn not live his own life and he mimic a fictional one . but there more wrong with the film than this . jocelyn moorhouse be ambitious far more ambitious than i think she realise . she try to take the king lear story and completely change the setting . this be a task in itself . the likeliest result be that the transplanted story will die and and nobody will quite be able to work out why ( although there be enough successful transplant and like west side story and to make it worth try ) . but she also attempt a revisionist retell . in the version of king lear she wish to create and reagan and goneril command our sympathy and and cordelia be a villain . this be a task in itself and too . succeed at either task be hard while succeed at both at once be impossible . in fact and succeed at one while so much a attempt the other and be impossible . if we be to look on the very same event from a different moral perspective then the event must be the very same event which mean there can be no tamper with set . if the story be to be transplant and alive and into a different setting and it moral heart must keep beat the whole while which mean there can be no tamper with ethical perspective . moorhouse be bind to fail in not just one but in both of her endeavour . and so she do . . naturally and it possible to attempt both task and fail at both task and yet by some fluke hit upon a work of art that good for independent reason . i mention this because i haven not read jane smiley novel and which and for all i know and be good for independent reason . but the film isn not . if there be nothing else wrong with it and there would still be no get around the fact that it just so thoroughly and excruciatingly dull . the very field of corn be even more boring than they would be in real life which needn not be the case and since off the top of my head i can think of four film ( the wizard of oz and north by northwest and the straight story and kikujiro ) in which the cornfield aren not bore at all .