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Movies / On DVD / Where the Heart Is
Where the Heart Is

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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 [More]

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

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Sep 26, 2000

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for Where the Heart Is

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81 - 100 (sorted by date)
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This movie is worth seeing just to watch five of the finest actresses in movies.

Full Review Source: Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies | comment Comment
01/01/00
Nell Minow
Nell Minow
Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies

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.

Full Review Source: Toronto Star | comment Comment
01/01/00
Peter Howell
Peter Howell
Toronto Star
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The movie isn't all that much -- it's too cloyingly ramshackle -- but Portman isn't playing down to her character this time around.

Full Review Source: New York Magazine | comment Comment
01/01/00
Peter Rainer
Peter Rainer
New York Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Where the Heart Is fails to build much emotional momentum.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
01/01/00
Peter Stack
Peter Stack
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Where the Heart Is is everything that cynical moviegoers despise.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Phoebe Flowers
Phoebe Flowers
Miami Herald

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.

Full Review Source: Winnipeg Sun | comment Comment
01/01/00
Randall King
Randall King
Winnipeg Sun

This low-impact unwed motherhood epic never gets any deeper than a pebble skipping across a pond.

Full Review Source: SPLICEDWire | comment Comment
01/01/00
Rob Blackwelder
Rob Blackwelder
SPLICEDWire

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.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Robert Horton
Robert Horton
Film.com
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Where the Heart Is has a screenplay like that, zigging and zagging and wildly careening from one melodramatic development to the next.

Full Review Source: At the Movies | comment Comment
01/01/00
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
At the Movies
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Unfortunately, Where the Heart Is collapses under its own codependent weight of taking on too much at once.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Sarah Raskin
Sarah Raskin
TNT's Rough Cut

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.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Sean Means
Sean Means
Film.com
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It simply overflows with stories, subplots and sidebars.

Full Review Source: Oregonian | comment Comment
01/01/00
Shawn Levy
Shawn Levy
Oregonian

Has enough humor and polish to gull you into enjoying its jest-folks fakery. But you may hate yourself in the morning.

Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | comment Comment
01/01/00
Steve Murray
Steve Murray
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The film has some memorable moments but overall comes across surprisingly flat.

Full Review Source: Internet Reviews | comment Comment
01/01/00
Steve Rhodes
Steve Rhodes
Internet Reviews

It's hard to shake the feeling that somebody's being condescended to.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
01/01/00
Steve Simels
Steve Simels
TV Guide's Movie Guide

It evokes laughs and a few tears, but also groans at bad material.

Full Review Source: Denver Post | comment Comment
01/01/00
Steven Rosen
Steven Rosen
Denver Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: rec.arts.movies.reviews | comment Comment
01/01/00
Susan Granger
Susan Granger
rec.arts.movies.reviews

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Detroit News | comment Comment
01/01/00
Susan Stark
Susan Stark
Detroit News
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

One-stop shopping for your emotional movie needs.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Susan Wloszczyna
Susan Wloszczyna
USA Today
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It appears to have been cobbled together from all the story lines the network sponsors wouldn't approve.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Terry Lawson
Terry Lawson
Detroit Free Press
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
81 - 100 (sorted by date)
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