Purely Joyful Movie!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Anyone who thinks this is a good movie, obviously was drunk when they watched it. Boring, lackluster and a complete waste of time, if you like movies with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family, The People Under the Stairs atmosphere and kinfolk from Deliverance, then yeah...you'll love this movie.I had such high hopes for this film, but the only redeeming things about this film are a good performance for such a little boy (the character of Steven), Cloris Leachman was a riot and Charlie, lent some much needed comfort as the only normal person in the film. Other than that, avoid this film. It's just not worth the time or the energy it will take for you to try to make sense of it, or enjoy it.

This credible, nuanced film beautifully captures the dark undercurrents of growing up in the midwest. Not everyone will connect to this movie, but it is a nicely done, subtle expression of the profoundly bleak experience of living in the heartland. The acting is excellent, the film sustains a real tension throughout and the payoff at the end is gratifying without being some godawful special effects vomitorium. I grew up in Ohio and the endless seas of corn, the pervasive sense that something is "off" about your entire world, realizing no one else perceives it, at times wondering if they are simply hiding or stifling their own sense of unease... Living like this is frankly soul destroying - and that's what this movie is about. The only other film that I can think of that does this well is "It". When I watched The Fields I thought, "this is somebody trying to understand or purge something they experienced, this is not fiction," and I was quite right, the filmmaker has spent a lifetime trying to make sense of the events portrayed in this film. A beautiful piece of cinema that was like a cold knife to my own inner child, who still fears the corn.

OMG.....this movie is based on true events, and it can scare the crap out of a kid! which is what this is about. Nevermind the reviewers here saying that its "boring...." whatever! I do not like slashers like Halloween, Friday the 13th...etc.....this film was told from a child's eyes and it is real stuff....I mean, who has an aunt who lives so slovenly, that the toilet doesn't work and can't even speak right, with a cigarette in her hand. And offers the kid a peanut butter and cracker from a jar that looks like it has sat there for 10 years! scary stuff. Don't go into the corn field, we will never find you, and what does he do? goes into the cornfield. Real life stuff that can scare the crap out of you! I....LOVED IT! Cloris Leachman kept me in stitches. I love her! She through f bombs left and right.....this is my kind of movie.

A long and winding road leading nowhere, The Fields is a mish-mash of disconnected set pieces with no real plot. While the desaturated cinematography and moody design set a general tone of gloom, and much of the acting is solid, The Fields focuses on fragmented back story, rather than a beginning, a middle, and an end. There's no connection between Steven's parents' domestic disputes and Steven's meanderings around the farm. So why did the producers even follow that storyline? Of course, one could ask the same question about any aspect of this "mystery," and ultimately, about The Fields itself. 5 points for competence, but -2 for making me waste my time.