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Review by Susan Granger
2 stars out of 4
Attention, Wal-Mart Shoppers! Princess Amidala's been sleeping
in your store. Well, not exactly, but in this chick's flick Natalie
Portman plays a poor, pregnant 17 year-old named Novalee Nation who
moves into an Oklahoma Wal-Mart when her wannabe musician/boyfriend,
Willie Jack Pickens (Dylan Bruno), abandons her. In the discount
chain-store, she finds everything she needs. She sleeps in a sleeping
bag on a fake lawn, bathes in the bathroom, and keeps careful record
of everything she's used so she can pay it back some day. And when her
daughter, Americus, is born she's celebrated in the media as "the
Wall-Mart Baby." Intrigued by her celebrity, Novalee's dysfunctional
mother (Sally Field) appears and makes off with some cash. So what's
the girl gonna do? Like the Beatles' song - she gets a little help
from her friends. Like a perpetually pregnant maternity nurse (Ashley
Judd), who become her best-friend, and a nurturing surrogate-mother
(Stockard Channing). Novalee even finds a fella, a shy, gentle
librarian (James Frain), and an empowering career as a
photographer. But then Willie Jack resurfaces as country singer Billy
Shadow, now the protege of a Nashville agent (Joan Cusack). Based on
Billie Letts' 1996 best-seller, adapted for the screen by Lowell Ganz
& Babaloo Mandel, and directed by Matt Williams (TV's "Roseanne,"
"Home Improvement"), this episodic story of love and the meaning of
family unfolds in a relentlessly likable, sudsy soap opera
style. While Natalie Portman is obviously a sophisticated, refined and
talented actress, she's woefully miscast as raw Southern trash, which
is the way her role is described. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to
10, "Where the Heart Is" is a sweetly banal, schmaltzy 5, just the
number that Novalee considers ominous.
Copyright © 2000 Susan Granger
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