Novelist Jane Smiley was smart to locate her update of +King Lear in America's farm country, where property equals livelihood, and the brewing legal issues of such an endowment might well fracture a family. But Shakespeare's text sacrifices realism in favor of emotion and symbolism, so translating it without testing modern sensibilities would have taken real subtlety. That's a concept totally unfamiliar to director Jocelyn Moorhouse. Stoked by melodramatic acting, A Thousand Acres flames up into hysteria so often, and with such little provocation, that the promising premise is dashed by shouting, as well as a far-too-literal reading of the novel. Lear stand-in Larry Cook, played by Jason Robards, unravels into paranoid raving with such dubious speed that the performance becomes impossible to look past. Michele Pfeiffer in particular follows Robards' lead, and overacting quickly engulfs the picture. The revelation that Cook molested his daughters may explain their quick tempers, but it muddies things by giving a pop psychology diagnosis of their behavior. This prompts too many familiar scenes of the daughters cataloguing their repressed memories, which other films have done better. A valiant effort, to be sure, A Thousand Acres would have benefited from concentrating on the unforeseen ugliness triggered by a property struggle. As an incest drama, it's pretty tired.