I've followed Natalie Portman's career ever since she blew me away in Luc Besson's classic, "The Professional" (if you haven't seen the director's cut, I STRONGLY advise that you go buy it... in the United States, the director's cut is available on DVD as "Leon the Professional"... also, it says "Uncut International Version" on it). Aside from "The Professional," another Natalie Portman movie that stands out in my mind is "Beautiful Girls." With a cast filled with some really talented people, Natalie Portman easily stole the movie from all of them. "Beautiful Girls" is another movie I highly recommend. A few months ago, Natalie Portman co-starred with Susan Sarandon in "Anywhere But Here," but now she's in a movie where she gets top billing. In "Where the Heart Is," Natalie is the lead. She may share the poster with Ashley Judd (another very talented actress), but this is definitely Natalie's movie.
"Where the Heart Is" is based on a book that was featured on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." I don't watch Oprah, but I hear that every now and then, she promotes the hell out of a book she happens to like, and then that book sells a billion copies or something, and then they make a movie out of it. That's fine with me. There's nothing wrong with getting people to read, and great books usually make great movies. Although I never read the book (written by Billie Letts), I'll bet it's great. The characters in the movie are very interesting (and very quirky, too), and books tend to go much deeper into the characters than a movie can. Of course, the book may be pure crap for all I know, but based on what I gather from the movie, I'm sure it's good. Then again, it helps that the book was adapted into a screenplay by Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel. These guys are brilliant comedy writers who seem to like to write for Ron Howard. They wrote "EdTV," "Parenthood," "Gung Ho," "Splash," and "Night Shift," all movies directed by Ron Howard. They also seem to like to write for Billy Crystal, like with "City Slickers," "Fathers' Day," "Forget Paris," "City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold," and "Mr. Saturday Night." By the way, they also wrote "A League of Their Own." Those movies are hit-and-miss, but I'll bet that most of those movies that you saw, you liked.
There's lotsa talent in this movie. As I'd mentioned earlier, Natalie Portman is in it, and she's as great as she usually is. At first, it's weird to see her all white trashified. Barefoot, pregnant, hick accent... it was almost like a Jeff Foxworthy joke. But once you get past that, it's fine. Natalie once again proves that she's one of the best actresses working today, in ANY age group. There's also Ashley Judd, who's made a name for herself since hitting it big with "Kiss the Girls" a few years back and "Double Jeopardy" just a few months ago. I remember her in "Smoke" about five years ago where she played a crack addict. She was on the screen for maybe five minutes, but her performance is unforgettable. She's an awesome talent. Stockard Channing kicks ass, as she always does. I'd love to see her win an Oscar one day. It wouldn't shock me if she got a nomination for Best Supporting Actress from this movie. There's also enough room to squeeze in Sally Field, Joan Cusack, and one of the coolest character actors on the planet (with a voice that fans of the "Spawn" animated series may find familiar), Keith David. James Frain plays a role COMPLETELY different from his role in "Elizabeth" and "Reindeer Games." I like him a lot. Every time I see him, he plays a totally different type of character, yet he's always believable. Finally, there's a hilarious performance by a guy I've never seen before named Dylan Bruno. He's excellent in this movie, and somehow, he made his character likable, despite his being a true sleazeball.
The director is a guy named Matt Williams, and I've never heard of him before. I know he did lotsa TV stuff, but other than that, I don't know anything about him. This is his feature film debut, and he did an admirable job. Then again, with those writers, and with such a talented team of actors, he had it pretty easy for his first time out.
"Where
the Heart Is" definitely is a chick movie, there's no denying it. But
some chick movies are masterpieces. Look at "Steel Magnolias"
and "Terms of Endearment." Am I calling "Where the Heart
Is" a masterpiece? Nope. Actually, it's not even close to being up
there with the other two. But it's quirky, entertaining, and never boring.
And the fact that Natalie Portman's in it certainly doesn't hurt.
Scale of
1-10: 8