Where The Heart Is (2000)

2.5 out of 4

Starring: Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd, Stockard Channing, James Frain, Dylan Bruno, Joan Cusack, Keith David, Sally Field

Director: Matt Williams

Time: 120 mins

Where The Heart Is is another showcase for Ashley Judd. Though only a supporting player this time, following leading roles in films like Double Jeopardy and Eye of the Beholder, Judd is easily the best thing about this drama that focuses on the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of a young pregnant girl who is abandoned by her boyfriend during a trip across America. Natalie Portman, another young actress with a steadily growing profile following her role in Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, plays the young girl, and while luminous, it is really Judd who brings a spark to the film whenever she is around.

Pregnant Novalee Nation (Portman) and her boyfriend Willy Jack Pickens (Dylan Bruno) are on a cross-country trip to California to set up a new life. At a stop in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, Novalee is left behind at the local Wal-Mart department store. Out-of-money, and desperate, she spends the next few weeks sleeping and eating in the store. Then, one night, she gives birth, and turns into an instant celebrity. Taken in by reformed alcoholic Thelma Husband (Stockard Channing) and her companion Mr Sprock (Richard Jones), she accepts a job at the Wal-Mart and becomes friends with young mother Lexie Coop (Judd), the local librarian Forney Hall (James Frain), and photographer Moses Whitecotten (Keith David). Meanwhile, Willy Jack gets thrown in jail, is released, and then seeks a career as a country music star with the help of ruthless Ruth Meyer (Joan Cusack).

Where The Heart Is is a fairly entertaining drama for the most part. Where it unravels for me is the focus on Willy Jack. We know he is a good-for-nothing, redemption-unworthy man, but the frequent peeks into his life after he abandons Novalee can only mean one thing - that they will inevitably meet again. But this meeting is almost anticlimactic, in a sense. After building it up throughout the movie, all Willy Jack does when he re-enters Novalee's world is to make her realise something. The subsequent resolution of the film is also fairly weak, as if the writers (frequent Ron Howard collaborators Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel) didn't quite know how to wrap it up.

In the time-honoured tradition of previous female-dominated dramas like Terms of Endearment and Steel Magnolias, Where The Heart Is contains its fair share of laughs and tragedy. The laughs come mostly from Judd's sassy, self-deprecating Lexie, who is resigned to her lot of being mother to a multitude of kids from failed relationships, but is still always on the lookout for the right man. Stockard Channing's fling with the kindly Mr Sprock is also hilarious. The tragedy portions of the script don't work as well, however. For one, they seem preordained. Just as Novalee's life takes a turn for the better, a new tragedy strikes, and the whole movie becomes a repetitious storm-and-calm symphony.

As stated earlier, Ashley Judd is the shining star in the cast. Her winsome smile always helps, but it's her down-to-earth demeanour and happy-go-lucky stance that stands out. She is also the participant in one of the more powerful moments in the film, when a relationship with an out-of-town man turns nasty. Natalie Portman, who has been in roles as diverse as the troubled teenaged daughter of Al Pacino in Heat, the stately Queen Amidala in The Phantom Menace, and the 12-year-old orphan who befriends hitman Jean Reno in Leon (a.k.a. The Professional), is quite good as Novalee, though her character isn't as well-developed as one might have hoped. Her struggles with constant adversity make her a stronger person, but there is little to show this except her budding career in photography. Her romance with librarian Forney also has little chemistry, so it's hard to cheer for their relationship. Stockard Channing is quietly charming as the ex-alcoholic with a heart of gold, but James Frain looks a bit lost and frazzled as Novalee's love interest. Keith David is solid in a serious role as the helpful photographer, after his hilarious turn as Cameron Diaz's stepfather in There's Something About Mary. And maternal stalwart Sally Field appears in a cameo as Novalee's mother.

Once in a while it's good to see a film which dwells on life and its subtleties, rather than mindless action or mass killings. The drama, however, has to be quite powerful to overcome the feeling of watching something that you've come to the cinemas to escape. While not everybody's life is as dark as what Novalee Nation goes through, there's something to be said for a comedy or an edge-of-the-seat thriller that has the ability to take your mind away from the everyday. TV producer Matt Williams performs an adequate job as director, helped by another charismatic performance from Ashley Judd, but in the end, Where The Heart Is is just an average film.

(c) Joe Wong (2 September 2000)