This movie is worth seeing just to watch five of the finest actresses in movies.
Where the Heart Is (2000)
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Reviews Counted:94
Fresh:33
Rotten:61
Average Rating:4.7/10
Consensus: Poor script and messy plot undermines the decent cast.
Runtime: 2 hrs 10 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis:
A bathroom stop en route, at an Oklahoma Wal-Mart, changes Novalee's life forever. For when she leaves the store, she discovers that Willy Jack and the Plymouth are gone. Only her Polaroid camera...
A bathroom stop en route, at an Oklahoma Wal-Mart, changes Novalee's life forever. For when she leaves the store, she discovers that Willy Jack and the Plymouth are gone. Only her Polaroid camera remains in the parking space.
Alone and broke, Novalee surreptitiously moves into the vast store, borrowing food and supplies from its shelves. When she gives birth on the floor - and her hideaway is revealed - Novalee and her "Wal-Mart Baby" become instant celebrities. More importantly, over the next few years, Novalee finally becomes part of an unconventional, makeshift family comprised of her wonderfully eccentric new friends.
Now, with the family she always wanted, Novalee is transformed from a homeless teen to a successful and strong woman. She has finally found a home in this small town where fate has dropped her. -- © 20th Century Fox
Starring: Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd, Stockard Channing, Joan Cusack
Starring: Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd, Stockard Channing, Joan Cusack, Sally Field, James Frain, Dylan Bruno, Keith David, Mackenzie Fitzgerald
Director: Matt Williams
Director: Matt Williams
Screenwriter: Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel
Producer: Patricia Whitcher, Matt Williams, Susan Cartsonis, David McFadzean
Composer: Mason Daring
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Reviews for Where the Heart Is
The moronic script by Lowell Ganz and 'Babaloo' Mandel has all the subtlety of a Hee Haw reunion and more schmaltz than a Catskills retirement home.
The movie isn't all that much -- it's too cloyingly ramshackle -- but Portman isn't playing down to her character this time around.
Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel apparently couldn't resist dressing the movie up like a Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake with lots of precious, cutesy comic touches.
This low-impact unwed motherhood epic never gets any deeper than a pebble skipping across a pond.
Serves up the usual homilies, but it lacks the quirky density and cinematic snap of, for instance, Jonathan Demme in his Melvin and Howard period.
Where the Heart Is has a screenplay like that, zigging and zagging and wildly careening from one melodramatic development to the next.
Unfortunately, Where the Heart Is collapses under its own codependent weight of taking on too much at once.
Williams and the Ganz/Mandel team never establish a consistent tone, shuttling from funny scenes to serious ones so arbitrarily that the two moods cancel each other out.
Has enough humor and polish to gull you into enjoying its jest-folks fakery. But you may hate yourself in the morning.
The film has some memorable moments but overall comes across surprisingly flat.
It's hard to shake the feeling that somebody's being condescended to.
It appears to have been cobbled together from all the story lines the network sponsors wouldn't approve.
Latest News for Where the Heart Is
March 31, 2005:
Jason Patric Proves Himself a "Walker"
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| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 15% 15% | The Ugly Truth |
| 98% 98% | Up |
| 36% 36% | G.I. Joe: The Rise of … |
| 52% 52% | The Taking of Pelham 1… |
| 45% 45% | Ice Age: Dawn of the D… |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 36% 36% | Angels & Demons |
| 68% 68% | Funny People |
| 25% 25% | Four Christmases |
| 45% 45% | Shorts |
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