Where the Heart Is
USA 2000
Reviewed by Kay Dickinson
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Six years ago, south-western America. Willy Jack and his pregnant girlfriend Novalee move out of their trailer to find a new home. They stop at a Wal-Mart general store so that Novalee can go to the toilet; she returns to discover that Willy Jack has driven off. With no money, Novalee surreptitiously moves into the Wal-Mart. One night she goes into labour and is taken to hospital by Forney, the town's librarian. She becomes a minor celebrity and her daughter Americus is dubbed the "Wal-Mart baby". When her previously absent mother visits her and steals the money she's received in gifts from the public, she moves in with Sister Husband, a woman she met in the shop. As the years go by, she builds up a photographic business living happily with Sister Husband who later dies in a tornado. She develops a close friendship with Forney and gradually realises he's in love with her. On the day of his alcoholic sister's funeral, they have sex, but after Novalee tells him she doesn't love him, Forney leaves town for university.
Meanwhile, Willy Jack has served time in prison and had a career as a country singer. Having turned to drugs and alcohol, he stumbles into the path of a train and loses his legs. Novalee reads a newspaper report about his wheelchair being stolen and visits him in hospital. He inspires her to visit Forney at college, where she tells him she loves him. They are married in the Wal-Mart.
Review
On paper Where the Heart Is looks like a jaunt through melodrama's most tawdry and tragic themes: its homeless heroine Novalee gives birth in a general store, her daughter is kidnapped by militant Christians, her surrogate mother is sucked up by a passing tornado, her best friend's children are sexually abused and her ex-partner's legs are run over by a train. It's startling, then, when a movie thronging with this much spectacular bad luck turns out to be so leaden. Whether consciously dismissive or simply clueless about the ironic treats it could have offered, the film promotes teenage single parenthood and small-town warmth with the straightest of faces.
Herbert Ross' 1989 melodrama Steel Magnolias may have been set a little further east than this film, but otherwise there's not much to separate these two wishful mirages of neighbourhood wholesomeness. Admittedly, Where the Heart Is' portrait of the apple-pie idyll in which it's set does have the odd dark touch: the film, for instance, doesn't hide away its alcoholics, of which there are four, and generously welcomes them into the bosom of the community, no questions asked. But here you're left wondering why in such a supportive place, they took to the bottle in the first place. Unfortunately the crammed plot has far too much else going on to offer any such insight.
The contradiction of plugging small-town tranquillity within such a hurtling storyline is exacerbated by the appearance of a cyclone. The images of Novalee clinging on to a storm-shelter door amid the ungainly special effects that created the pewter-hued maelstrom bring to mind Douglas Sirk's melodramas, as do the characters' unnervingly speedy return to everyday life. But the sequence seems less an exercise in deliberate distanciation than a directorial misfire on the part of first-timer Matt Williams - an ill-advised attempt at a bit of CGI spectacle on a modest budget.
The movie's distinguished cast do their best; Natalie Portman even manages to coo "How can you love someone so much who you've just met?" at her character's new-born without making the moment seem too risible. Unfortunately, the spirited performances (notably Stockard Channing as the benevolent Sister Husband) buckle under the weight of the implausibly overloaded script. Knowingly playful hyperbole sneaks in courtesy of Joan Cusack's seen-it-all-before music manager and Sally Field's trampy bottle-blonde mother, a performance fuelled by an evident fervour for playing against type.
Credits
- Director
- Matt Williams
- Producers
- Matt Williams
- Susan Cartsonis
- David McFadzean
- Patricia Whitcher
- Screenplay
- Lowell Ganz
- Babaloo Mandel
- Based on the novel by
- Billie Letts
- Director of Photography
- Richard Greatrex
- Editor
- Ian Crafford
- Production Designer
- Paul Peters
- Music
- Mason Daring
- ©Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
- Production Companies
- Twentieth Century Fox presents a Wind Dancer production
- Executive Producers
- Carmen Finestra
- Rick Leed
- Co-producers
- Gerrit Folsom
- Dianne Minter Lewis
- Associate Producer
- Roz Weisberg
- Production Co-ordinators
- Leigh Wilborn
- Shanti Del Sarte
- Unit Production Manager
- Patricia Whitcher
- Location Managers
- Eric A. Williams
- Robbie Friedman
- 2nd Unit Director
- Matt Earl Beesley
- Assistant Directors
- Matt Earl Beesley
- Vince Palmo Jr
- Brian Steward
- Script Supervisor
- Gina Grande
- Casting
- Mali Finn
- Texas:
- Jo Edna Boldin
- LA Associate:
- Emily Schweber
- B Camera/Steadicam Operator
- Ralph Watson
- Visual Effects Supervisor
- David J. Negron Jr
- Visual Effects/Tornado Animation
- Cinesite
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Margaret Johnson
- Supervisor:
- Randy Moore
- Graphic Designer
- Annilee Ballentine Ramirez
- Art Director
- John Frick
- Set Designer
- Janet Stokes
- Set Decorator
- Amy Wells
- Novalee's Photographs
- Keith Carter
- Moses' Photographs
- Ken Light
- Costume Designer
- Melinda Eshelman
- Costume Supervisor
- Jo Kissack
- Make-up
- Key:
- Felicity Bowring
- Artist:
- Keith Sayer
- Hair
- Key Stylist:
- Beth Miller
- Stylist:
- Bridget Cook
- Titles
- Scarlet Letters
- Custom Film Effects
- Opticals
- Pacific Title
- Musicians
- Kenny White
- Duke Levine
- Dave Mattacks
- Paul Bryan
- Billy Novick
- Music Conductor
- Marty Brody
- Orchestrations
- Marty Brody
- Dana Brayton
- Music Supervisor
- Lisa Brown
- Music Co-ordinator
- David Shacter
- Music Editor
- Brent Brooks
- Score Recordist
- Michael Golub
- Score Mixer
- John Richards
- Soundtrack
- "Ride Like Hell" - Big Sugar; "Few and Far Between" by Kevin Bowe, Shannon - Shannon Curfman; "Rowdy Booty Time" - Joan Osborne and Tommy Sims; "Let It Slip Away" - John Hiatt; "Just Might Change Your Life" - Girlfriendz; "That's the Beat of a Heart" - Michael McCarthy; "So Young" The Corrs; "Only You (And You Alone)" - Lonestar; "So Excited" - NRBQ; "That's the Beat of a Heart" - The Warren Brothers featuring Sara Evans; "Shake My Soul" - Beth Nielsen Chapman, Annie Roboff, Carmen Rizzo; "Trains Crossing" - Duke Levine; "What'd I Say" - Lyle Lovett; "Completely" - Jennifer Day; "Mustang Sally" - Malford Milligan; "Beyond the Blue" - Emmylou Harris and Patty Griffin; "There You Are" - Martina McBride; "Grow Young with You" - Coley McCabe with special guest Andy Griggs
- Sound Supervisor
- Charlie Shepard
- Sound Mixer
- Hank Garfield
- Re-recording Mixers
- David Fluhr
- Adam Jenkins
- Dialogue Editor
- Michael Magill
- Effects Editors
- Richard Burton
- Suhail Kafity
- Matt Temple
- Kami Asgar
- ADR
- Group Supervisor:
- Johnny Gidcomb
- Loop De Loop
- Editor:
- Linda Folk
- Foley Editor
- Jonathan Klein
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Randy Fife
- Cast
- Natalie Portman
- Novalee Nation
- Ashley Judd
- Lexie Coop
- Stockard Channing
- Sister Husband
- Joan Cusack
- Ruth Meyers
- James Frain
- Forney Hull
- Dylan Bruno
- Willy Jack Pickens
- Keith David
- Moses Whitecotten
- Sally Field
- Mama Lil
- Richard Jones
- Mr Sprock
- Ray Prewitt
- Tim
- Laura House
- Nicki
- Karey Green
- Rhonda
- Mary Ashleigh Green
- girl in bathroom
- Kinna McInroe
- Wal-Mart clerk
- Laura Auldridge
- Wal-Mart assistant manager
- Alicia Godwin
- Jolene
- Dennis Letts
- sheriff
- Kathryn Esquivel
- Mrs Ortiz
- Mark Mathis
- reporter
- John Daniel Evermore
- orderly
- Linda Wakeman
- hospital receptionist
- David Alvarado
- cellmate
- Mark Voges
- religious man
- Angee Hughes
- religious woman
- Todd Lowe
- Troy
- Margaret Ann Hoard
- Mary Elizabeth Hull
- Rodger Boyce
- Officer Harry
- Gabriel Folse
- policeman 2
- MacKenzie Fitzgerald
- Americus
- Natalie Pena
- Angela Ortiz
- Yvette Diaz
- Rosanna Ortiz
- T.J. McFarland
- Ray
- Richard Nance
- Johnny Desoto
- Tony Mann
- M.C. of banquet
- John Swasey
- Jerry
- Scarlett McAlister
- Kitty
- Kylie Harmon
- Praline
- Cody Linley
- Brownie
- Bob Coonrod
- Ernie
- Heather Kafka
- Delphia
- Angelina Fiordellisi
- nurse
- Cheyenne Rushing
- co-ed
- Certificate
- 12
- Distributor
- 20th Century Fox (UK)
- 10,785 feet
- 119 minutes 51 seconds
- Dolby Digital
- Colour/Prints by
- DeLuxe