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WHERE THE HEART IS Send This Review to a Friend
There's plenty of heart in "Where the Heart Is" but not much sense. Screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, whose forte usually is comedy, have turned to oddball sentimentality in adapting Billie Letts's novel for the screen, and the result is a string of contrivances that don't ring very true despite a reputable cast.
Natalie Portman, an attractive actress, plays Novalee Nation, the film's lead, who, unwed and pregnant, is cruelly jilted and left to fend for herself by the irresponsible father Willy Jack (Dylan Bruno). With no place to stay in Oklahoma, where she's stuck en route from Tennessee to California, she holes up in a Wal-Mart, where she gives birth to a child who in the rush of ensuing fame is dubbed "the Wal-Mart baby." If you think Novalee Nation is a dumb name, what about Sister Husband (Stockard Channing), the woman who sympathizes with Novalee and takes her into her home? Ashley Judd plays Novalee's friend Lexie.
This is the sort of film in which Willy Jack longs to be a song writer-singer, gets a tough manager (Joan Cusack) and then goes downhill to a disastrous railroad accident while he is drunk. Naturally, he and Novalee meet again. But Novalee's heart belongs to librarian Forney (James Frain)--a real mister nice guy. There are some amusing and heartfelt moments, accented by director Matt Williams, but there's no way my heart can belong to a film that resorts to a wedding in a Wal-Mart as its climax. No sale. A 20th Century Fox release.
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