I was quite excited about seeing Where the Heart Is. It's an adaptation of a book I love by Billie Letts, with Natalie Portman playing the lead, and a supporting cast including Stockard Channing and Joan Cusack... I mean really, what's not to love? Or so I thought until I started reading the scathing reviews written by every critic in the free world. I discovered that not only am I supposed to hate the movie, I am supposed to think the book is a contrived, treacly mess. Who knew?

Of course I had to see for myself, so I made sure I was alone and then snuck into a matinee. Heart is the story of Novalee Nation, who is barefoot and pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend Willy Jack in an Oklahoma Wal Mart at the beginning of the film. With nowhere else to go, she lives in the Wal Mart until her baby is born. She is taken in by a couple of the kind hearted folksy folk who populate Sequoyah Oklahoma, "Sister" Thelma Husband and her "gentleman friend," Mr. Sprock. She also befriends a local photographer named Moses Whitecotton, the eccentric Forney Hull and a nurse named Lexie Coop. 

I can see where the reviews are coming from, really I can. The plot is way over the top: Americus is kidnapped, Forney and Novalee fall in love, Lexie is brutalized, a tornado hits. The character's names are outrageous, notably Sister Husband, the Coop kids (named after snack foods) and Novalee's baby, Americus. Everything about the movie screams implausible.

Of course, none of that bothers me. I only have a couple of problems with this film. First is a problem inherited from the book: whenever the movie focuses on Willie Jack, it becomes a big bore. Although his path and Novalee's inevitably cross again, the chronicle of his time in prison and his rise and fall from country music stardom is a drag. I don't really care what happens to Willy Jack, and his only function is as a deus ex machina in the final reel. My second problem is that in the book, Lexie is a plus sized woman who is forever on a series of wacky diets. In the movie, she looks like Ashley Judd. Although Judd is sparkly, the character of Lexie loses a lot of heart--and humor--along the way. 

But the acting is top notch, particularly by Channing and Portman, and Novalee's story is never dull. Plus it's got lines like, "Lord, thank you for this meal, and please forgive us, Lord, for the fornicatin' that me and Mr. Sprock have committed again today-- right here on this kitchen table." You can't possibly hate a movie when Stockard Channing says a line like that. At heart, this is a down home, cotton candy, feel good movie that's worth checking out. Don't forget though: it should be washed down with a large soda for the maximum sugar shock.