Search - Country on DVD

Jessica Lange's vision is brought to the screen!

ryan cole | murfreesboro, tn United States | 07/27/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Screen Star Jessica Lange was offered the role as a farmers wife in "The River", but she didn't feel it portrayed the farmers plight well enough, so she co-produced this film and starred in it. She gives a warming and heart felt performance as Ivy, a woman who is a fighter for her family and a sacrificing mother before she's a "farmer's wife". Sam Shepard portrays Gil as a weak man who can not face the troubles of his family until he realizes that he needs them more then they need him. This is one of the few films to portray the farmers plight with such truthfulness that it breaks your heart at every turn to know that this actually went on and is still going on.
1984 Academy Award Nomination:
BEST ACTRESS-JESSICA LANGE"

Jessica vs the Government

Movie Mania | Southern Calfornia | 12/19/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"County and The River came out virtually simultaneously. They have the same theme, farms in crisis. The main difference is Country is more political in nature.

Country is not a true story but is based on a number of true stories. This film is about a family owned farm that is in trouble. This trouble was not really their fault. It was a combination of changing economies and a pullout of government funding. During the 70's, the government threw loans to the farmers, encouraging farmers to overextend themselves. In the 80's, when crop prices plummeted, the government foreclosed on the farms. This made way for large corporate farmers to buy them for pennies on the dollar.

Real life husband and wife, Jessica Lange and Sam Sheppard, play the Jewel and Gil Ivey. They have a farm and government loans. When they can't make the harvest payment, the bank forecloses on the farm. Jewel is determined not to lose the farm.

This is tour de force performance by Jessica Lange. Wilford Brimley plays her curmudgeon father and gives a perfectly measured performance. This would become his signature character that he would be cast as for the remainder of his career.

Richard Pearce's direction and William Witliff's screenplay keep the film from getting to preachy or too sentimental. This is the best film made on the subject of the farm loan crisis.

DVD EXTRAS: None
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Life On The Farm

Diana Moon | Sedalia, MO USA | 03/17/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This movie depicted what happened to so many farmers in the 1980's when interest rates went so high that it was impossible to survive if there was any debt against what you owned. Jessica Lange of course, was brilliant as the all-suffering farm wife and Sam Shepard as the husband who could not accept that there was no support from "the bank". It is the heart-warming, but flawed depiction of a family coming together in the hard times to save their way of life."

Outstanding Disney film

Arnita D. Brown | 12/11/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Along with "Night Crossing," "Tex" and "Never Cry Wolf," "Country" is one of the early Disney serious attempts at broadening their motion pictures beyond the slapstick comedies of the '70's, as well as broadening their audience to anything other than kids bored during the summer. Several of these "in-between" films were serious flops (but not all without things to admire), including "Something Wicked This Way Comes," "The Black Hole," and "Trenchcoat." Most of these films filled the gap between Disney's Ron Miller era and the Michael Eisner era--set in motion by the previous studio heads, and completed under the current studio heads. Of course, Eisner and Co. weren't particularly interested in these films, as they had little to do with them. Still they were released, and some found admiring critics, if not droves of ticketbuyers. "Country" is a beautifully shot, written, and acted film that honestly deals with the pain of family farming under the dreadful reagun administration. Sincerity is the key, here. No Hollywood hokum. And one of the BEST tornado sequences in motion picture history."