Far North Reviews

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sam Shepard had already made it as a screenwriter (PARIS, TEXAS and FOOL FOR LOVE) and as an actor (DAYS OF HEAVEN and THE RIGHT STUFF, for which he received an Oscar nomination). With FAR NORTH, he went behind the camera for the first time. Working from his own screenplay, Shepard directs Jessica Lange in a story of family turmoil set in her native Minnesota. When patriarch Durning is hospitalized, his strong-willed eldest daughter, Lange, returns--pregnant and unmarried--from New York City to her rural Minnesota home. Upon her arrival, Lange finds herself immersed in the increasingly surreal weirdness of her family, as they wander the wilderness searching for fulfillment. This largely unfocused comedy, strangely ponderous and uncharacteristically lighthearted, is a departure from the intensity and psychological depth of Shepard's previous work. Unfortunately, he only occasionally provides a laugh and offers none of the insights into the human condition or arresting technique that made him a great playwright.