WHERE THE HEART IS A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
Natalie Portman, an eminently likable actress who will always be famous as Queen Amidala in THE PHANTOM MENACE, plays a sweetly tragic character named Novalee Nation (funny names are prominently featured) in Matt William's WHERE THE HEART IS. Novalee is the mother of the famous "Wal-Mart baby," but more on that later.
A mixture of humor and pathos, the film has some memorable moments but overall comes across surprisingly flat. Based on Billie Letts's book, the uneven script is by the writing team of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who have produced some wonderfully funny comedies (CITY SLICKERS) as well as some gratingly awful ones (FATHER'S DAY).
Novalee grew up with a family of losers. When her mother (Sally Field in a cameo) comes to visit her, it's only to steal her money before vanishing again.
When we first meet Novalee, she is a very pregnant teen and soon to be a barefoot one as well. Her boyfriend, Willy Jack Pickens (Dylan Bruno), is taking her to California -- she hopes to get a room with an ocean view in Bakersfield, no less -- in his junker, which has a large hole in front of the passenger's seat. This makes it convenience for him to toss out his garbage as he drives, but it's also a hole that swallows up shoes while the passenger dozes.
Willy Jack stops to let Novalee off at a Wal-Mart to go to the bathroom and then abandons her there. (He repeatedly gets his comeuppance for this indiscretion in a subplot that follows his pitiful life.) A broke Novalee discovers that she can live at the store by hiding in the restroom when it closes. Like a kid in a candy store, she finds everything that she needs at night: exercise gear, boom boxes, reading material, clocks, camping equipment, cookies, you name it. After 6 weeks, her life at the Wal-Mart Motel comes to a crashing end when one night her water breaks. In an improbable scene, in a movie filled with them, her white knight, Forney Hull (James Frain), smashes through a plate glass window to save her and rush her to the hospital.
After having her baby (Americus Nation -- get it?), Novalee becomes a celebrity. Wal-Mart, which has been unknowingly providing for her well being, offers her a job at any of their stores anywhere in the country. At the hospital, she meets Lexie Coop (Ashley Judd), a woman in a permanent state of pregnancy, who attracts abusive men. Lexie says that she likes to name her ever-expanding brood after junk food, including Brownie, Praline, Cherry and Baby Ruth.
If the story sounds funny, it is sometimes, but you're more likely to grin than laugh. Much of the movie tests the film's PG-13 rating. It includes, among other shocking scenes, a baby kidnapping, a killer tornado, a train that chops off a character's legs, a badly battered girlfriend and pedophilia. In the latter case, we hear the abused young child screaming after the fact, but the child rape itself isn't shown. Maybe this doesn't make the film R by the MPAA rating standards, but it's a lot more shocking than many R films, which get the rating because some character says the F-word a couple of times.
A sad story, WHERE THE HEART IS never quite finds its rhythm, which leaves its audience fidgeting in their seats not quite knowing whether to laugh or cry. The story does have a lot of potential. One suspects that with a script doctor and a seasoned director, the film could have soared. As released, it's a film with an almost equal balance of hits and misses, but with a precious performance by Portman at its core.
WHERE THE HEART IS runs 2:00. It is rated PG-13 for intense thematic material, language and sexual content and would be acceptable for those over 13.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
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