How sad is this?

Disappointment for a huge fan!

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Well, it was fun to watch and enjoyable. However, told obviously from a very manipulated child's perspective. That poor man, I certainly hope all of his children do not resent and still believe what their Mother brainwashed them to think. The Mother even managed to blame their Father for her fear of driving! The abuse scenes do not have the ring of truth, I'd say because they never really happened and/or are being embellished by very myopic naive eyes. Here is a woman that marries the closest excuse for fame in her small town and spent the rest of her life resenting what she could have been and blaming her poor husband for her own shortcomings and anti-stardom. This man probably loved her dearly and when he was injured got a sudden cold shoulder that he was never able to warm as if it were his fault they would never be rich and famous. When he needed her, she turned her back and spent her life emasculating him and manipulating his kids against him. I'd wager that is closer to the truth, but if you like fairy tales, you will like this film. Julianne Moore and Woody Harrelson acting, always worth watching I do not care what the plot line.

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, is based on the true story of Evelyn Ryan, a mother of ten in Defiance, Ohio, who supported her family of 12 by writing winning jingles for contests.Julianne Moore is Evelyn, a unflappable mother who somehow keeps her cool raising her ten children and dealing with a drunken husband "Kelly" (Woody Harrelson), a machinist who spends all his money on booze. Her pastor advises her to make a better home for him. Thanks, father. Sober, Kelly is a sweet enough man, if ineffectual. Drunk he resents that it is she who supplies what money and food they have and has put a roof over their heads and he becomes violent - not towards her or the children, but by breaking and throwing things. This scares the kids. Once, a near tragedy is avoided when, during one of his tirades, Evelyn falls and the milk bottles break. One more inch and that would have been it for her.When she wins $5,000 (she had multiple entries using her kids' names, a common practice - one entry per name), she and her husband (Woody Harrelson) purchase a house, but only he signs the mortgage.Very much, the point made in this film is that things were different for women in the '50s. Evelyn was a clever woman who had a bright future as a newspaperwoman, but she gave it all up for marriage and family. On TV, we see Queen for a Day and Miss America saying she wouldn't vote for a female president because women are "too emotional." The acting is good all around, with Moore the perfect '50s housewife - maybe too perfect - how any woman could hold it together given her life is beyond me. Only a few times do we see her break down and be anything but calm and cheerful. Harrelson is excellent as a weak man who, despite his unhappiness, can't get his act together to give her enough money for the milkman.Supposedly the film is very close to the book, written by one of the daughters. The vintage elements are wonderful; one really feels as if it is the '50s, with the typewriter, the black and white TV, the old cars, the clothes (some of which belonged to the real Evelyn Ryan).Very good.

First, The One writer is one of the children, the daughter of the main character in this wonderful film. The character played by Julianne Moore( Brilliant) Must have brought this film to life and it was so moving to see her good deeds did not go unpunished (J/K watch the movie) and her husband was Woody Harrelson (you wanted to hate) who was the Dad everyone must have had during those times but nobody else would know of it B/C in those days Nobody spoke of such things.Best quote of the the film"I don't need you to make me happy, I just need you to leave me alone when I am" I truly cannot say enough positive things about this movie*sleeper hit*

I expected an uplifting, nostalgic celebration of life in the 1950s, depicting an all-American family pulling together to surmount the obstacles and difficulties of life. Instead, I found myself enduring a grim and depressing story of a courageous woman married to a foul-mouthed, bitter drunk who never let go of his own disappointment with life long enough to rejoice in or appreciate the contributions of his wife in her heroic efforts to help provide for their family. The movie makers seem to have been bent upon tearing down the American family, and I don't enjoy movies that do that. If you want nostalgia, watch October Sky or It's a Wonderful Life, not this joyless, gloomy slog.