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Though it did earn Sigourney Weaver a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, this powerful film, based on Jane Hamilton’s novel, went mostly overlooked by everyone else. Produced by longtime Spielberg partners Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall but released under the auspices of an unheard-of little outfit named First Look Pictures, it wasn’t seen on more than a handful of screens, once again proving Corman's Law: the movies you’ve never heard of are usually the most worthwhile.
The plot, variations of which were all too familiar on the nightly news a few years ago, centers on Alice Goodwin (Weaver), a harried Wisconsin school nurse, mother, and farm wife who is charged with sexually molesting a student. Jailed while her shell-shocked husband (David Strathairn) tries to raise bail, she paradoxically finds the dehumanizing incarceration a haven from the incapacitating guilt she has been suffering from since a moment’s inattention allowed her best friend’s (Julianne Moore) child to drown a few weeks before. While everyone’s world is falling apart in big ragged pieces, Alice must try to formulate a legal defense in a community that has already judged her.
At times almost unbearably tense, A Map of the World is a noteworthy first cinematic effort from New York stage director Scott Elliott. He explores the depths of the characters’ turmoil by simply backing the camera up to give his players room to work, especially Weaver and Moore. This is motion-picture drama at its best, even if it’s not always pretty. A
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