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Not to be confused with the 1990 comedy flop featuring Uma Thurman, thisWhere the Heart Isboasts a winning performance from Natalie Portman. Novalee Nation (Portman), a pregnant teenager from Tennessee, is bound for California with her worthless boyfriend, Willy Jack (Dylan Bruno). A pit stop at an Oklahoma Wal-Mart proves fateful when Willy Jack abandons her there. She secretly sets up camp at the megastore and spends her days meeting with kindly booster Sister Husband (Stockard Channing) and eccentric librarian Forney Hall (James Frain). Her life takes another turn after she gives birth in the store (clean up, aisle six!) and finds a best friend in sassy nurse Lexie Coop (Ashley Judd). Meanwhile, Willy Jack has found a talent agent (Joan Cusack) and tries to make some life changes of his own.
Where The Heart Isoffers charming, folksy fun; homespun wisdom; and an obstacle course of plot development (if the Wal-Mart angle weren't enough, there's also a kidnapping, a tornado, and at least half a dozen other major events thrown in). Director Matt Williams, who produced the popular sitcomsRoseanneandHome Improvement, takes television's cut-to-commercial route to make giant leaps in space and time from scene to scene. It's disorienting, but the remarkable female cast (which includes Sally Field in a cameo) lends plausiblilty to the muddle, even when you don't think anything more could possibly happen.--Shannon Gee
Where the Heart Is The book, Where the Heart is, is about a young girl, 17 years old, 7 months pregnant, and her boyfriend has just left her. She has no place to call "home" so she lives in a Walmart using their supplies to survive. She gives birth to a baby girl, and goes on a wonderful adventure meeting various types of people, and realizing you can call any place "home" as long as you have family, friends, or loved ones. My favorite part of the book is when Novalee tells Forney that she doesnt really love him. It's my favorite part because it is a main part in the book, and it really helps you understand how Novalee acts and thinks, and helps you relate to her more easily. I definitely recommend the book, Where the Heart is. It is one of my favorite books. It shows the true meaning of family, friends, and a place to call "home". If you like books with drama, and romance, then you will enjoy this book. Where the Heart Is will teach you to not take things for granted, and appreciate the people around you.
Film Essay on Where The Heart Is In Where The Heart Is, the number five is an ironic symbol of bad luck, because Novalee's misfortune began at an early age and her misfortune followed her to adulthood. Every time she comes across anything that includes the number five, whether it's five o'clock or five dollars in change at the store, it is followed by some form of calamity that makes Novalee's life a little harder. Furthermore, Novalee experienced misfortune even with her own daughter. Where The Heart Is first began as a novel written by Billie Letts. Then, it was turned into a motion pictured directed by Matt Williams and screenplay by Lowell Ganz. My aunt who always recommended me to watch it gave this movie to me as a Christmas gift. I think she wanted me to know that there are many hardships in life and to never give up, just like Novalee kept on going with her life even though she had many discouraging events that happened to her. Where The Heart Is opened in 2000 but I first watched it on November 20, 2005 in my room at my house. This movie rated 6.5 on a scale from one to ten on the Internet Movie Database. It was given a low scored because many viewers believed the characters could have been more developed in their parts. I personally would rate this movie a ten because it was very dramatic to me and very compelling. It had really captured my attention with Novalee's character and all of her misfortunes adding on and on as she kept trying to find some hope. In Where The Heart Is, the number five an ironic symbol of bad luck, because in the movie Novalee faces more struggles in her already misfortunate life when she comes along anything with the number five tied with it. Even though she did all she could to keep her away from pain, it still hovered over her like a black cloud always around. Novalee's life of bad luck had begun at early childhood. On her fifth birthday her mother left her for a baseball umpire and never came back and left her to spend her growing up years alone with no family to rely on. From that moment on she was cursed with ill luck. After she dropped out of school to wait tables in a restaurant, a waitress that went crazy attacked Novalee with a steak knife and cut her from wrist to elbow. It took fifty-five to stitch her back up. From this traumatic experience in her life, Novalee continued her life constantly followed with pain and heartache when she comes across the number five. Novalee's persistent misfortune had followed her throughout her life every since she was a young girl. She left her trailer home with her controlling boyfriend to begin a new life in Tennessee at five o'clock. He had bought an old heap for eighty dollars with no floor on the passenger side. Novalee fell asleep and her shoes fell out from the bottom. After, they stopped at a Wal Mart so that she could use the bathroom and to buy some slippers. After purchasing her item the cashier gave her change of five dollars and fifty-five cents. Novalee was horrified and ran out of the store leaving her stuff behind. She nervously ran out into the parking lot and only found her old camera sitting in the parking spot where she last saw her boyfriend. For the next two weeks she managed to stay inside the Wal Mart at night and using merchandise that would help her get through her day and her pregnancy. At the same time she kept a list of the things used and how much she owed Wal Mart. Then one night while Novalee slept, she felt a sharp pain from her stomach. She nervously walked down the aisle gasping in pain when her water broke and she fell to the ground in aisle five. She helplessly crawled to aisle six and then a man broke through the window and delivered her baby while she had passed out. She woke up the next day in the hospital only to be surprised that she was a local celebrity. She was now considered the mommy that gave birth to the Wal Mart baby. She wanted to give her baby a strong name that means something. She named her Americus Nation. Furthermore, Novalee still continued to come across more struggles even with her own daughter. Americus was born on July 5, 1995. When Americus was five days old she got the jaundice, when she was five weeks old she had an ear infection, and when she was five months old she was kidnapped. A religious couple that believed she was an abomination kidnapped her. They had come from Midnight, Tennessee to give the word of God to the baby but were turned away by the Welcome Woman. They were the same couple that sent Novalee a letter and wrote, "A baby born out of holy wedlock is an abomination in the eyes of God." After they kidnapped Americus, they had left her in a manger in a Nativity scene in front of a church. The number five is a symbol of the same main thing in the movie. One single number represents the pain and struggles of one person. Although, after all Novalee's heartaches it shows that everything turns out for the best and that with bad comes good.What Were They Thinking? What Were They Thinking?
"Where the Heart Is" reminds me a little of "Pumpkin". Good performances and excellent individual scenes that occur so haphazardly that the movie never quite figures out where it is going but manages to cover a lot of ground in the process. This gives both films such a surreal quality that a few days after viewing you will wonder if the whole thing was just a dream (Christina Ricci as a blonde sorority girl-Natalie Portman as a pregnant hillbilly-must have just been my imagination). Unfortunately, both films stop short of being truly surreal and are simply ordinary efforts with a little strangeness. If a visionary director like David Lynch had just ratcheted up the surreal qualities a tiny bit more the result would have been special.
The plot is such a mix of randomness, contrivance, flash-forwards, improbability, coincidence, reversals of fortune, and incidental sub-plots that the editor must have been pushed to the brink of madness during the post-production process. The ending is such a lame contrivance that you are puzzled that the producer did not send the script back for major alteration before shooting even began.
It is a tribute to Natalie Portman that she holds this mess together, and even manages to keep the nausea meter at a tolerable level during the ending. Although you won't believe it from her "Star Wars" performances, Portman is really a fine actress. Although horribly miscast here (couldn't her character have been from rural Nebraska instead-thus not requiring that hillbilly accent?), she does manage to bring her character to life.
