David Sutherland took three years to film this extraordinary documentary about Juanita and Darrel Buschkoetter, a Nebraska farm couple valiantly fighting to keep their dream and their family together during a three-year siege created by drought, debt, falling farm prices, and inexperience. Although this emotionally affecting drama deals with the difficulties of surviving in rural America, there is a universality to its depiction of couples struggling with the challenges of love and work.
The Farmer's Wife originally aired on PBS's "Frontline" series to enormous acclaim. Darrel and Juanita tell their story without a narrator. When things go bad for them, the Buschkoetters can't rely upon their parents. Juanita's mother blames Darrel for putting her daughter in poverty. Darrel's father, who takes his son's help for granted, never commends him for his love of farming.
The multiple pressures created by financial insecurity take a heavy toll on the Buschkoetter's marriage. Darrel's hopes of having a stay-at-home wife and mother of his three daughters is shattered when Juanita must go to work cleaning homes. He takes a job in a factory while continuing to do all his farm chores at night. Later, Juanita goes to college and eventually ends up in town working for a crop insurance company. As she grows more sophisticated and self-reliant, Darrel's self-esteem plummets. His rage is so explosive that Juanita forces him to join a therapy group. Their marital problems diminish the joy that comes with a bumper crop year. They are able to pay off their creditors and save their farm but the marriage is in trouble.
The only relationships that last are the ones where couples are able to negotiate a new way of living with each other as they wrestle with the high demands of love and work. The Farmer's Wife is a tour de force depiction of change as the alchemy for keeping any intimate relationship alive.