You won't be disappointed!

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

One of my all time favorites.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Where the Heart Is (2000): Dir: Matt Williams / Cast: Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd, Stockard Channing, James Frain, Sally Field: Unfocused drama about the important things in life. Natalie Portman stars as a pregnant woman abandoned by her boyfriend at a Wal-Mart. She stakes out there until the baby is born then she awakens in a hospital. Her mother appears just long enough for her to steal the money given to her by the good people of Wal-Mart but she finds friendship with Stockard Channing who opens her home. Useless subplots involve her boyfriend being arrested and struggling to become a musician; massive storms; baby stealers; abusive husbands; weddings. The only thing missing is the kitchen sink but even that couldn't save this travesty. Director Matt Williams fails to gain hold over the action. It begins with promise before falling into formula. Portman is subdued within the idiotic subplots. Channing's role is pretty much standard issue. Ashley Judd comes off too foolish. James Frain as the librarian who delivers the baby also gets locked into romantic clichés. Sally Field plays Portman's stooge of a mother who sees her on TV and makes an appearance long enough to make off with her money. The Wal-Mart location was great but once Portman left there then locations became pretty drab. Theme of starting over gets sidetracked and lost in this numbingly dull film. Score: 1 / 10

I've never heard about this movie before, it was running on TV so I decided to watch it. I was really pleasantly surprised.This is such a sweet movie about a 17 year old girl called Novalee. Novalee is pregnant and moves with her self centered boyfriend to California where he can pursue his music career. On the way to California they stop at a Walmart so she can use the bathroom and buy some things, but things take a drastic change when she discovers that he has left her there. She feels terrible and has little other choice than to stay at the Walmart night and day. Every person in her life has let her down and in this place she finds some real good people she can call friends.A very touching movie.

Don't be a jerk. we don't need to see evidence of your ability to use correct syntax and BIG WORDS. this movie is great. it's sort of tongue-in-cheek, depicting the American working class as it exists in certain rural areas. its excessive use of Wal-Mart and brief but hilariously slanted depictions of country music are hilarious. also, naming her baby America is just another jest at some of those excessively "patriotic" Americans. take a step back and realize not every movie is so literal, unlike the Tom Clancy books you read."fundamentals are the crutch for the talentless" -Kenny Powersbyeeeeeee

What an odd film.My natural inclinations are very much against this sort of movie. There is a tweeness about much of it which makes me wince, and I cite particularly the names of some of the characters, and the way in which, despite all the odds, Natalie Portman's character - uneducated, penniless, heavily pregnant, and beset by the very worst of bad luck - happens to fall among nothing but sunny-natured philanthropists who offer helping hands all the livelong day, tra-la, isn't life wonderful?Yeah. As if.Yet something kept me watching. I became interested in what befell these characters, no matter how improbable it turned out to be (I noted that a kind of balance was struck between improbable and predictable, with some parts being both at the same time).Natalie Portman's accent in this was rather better than her English accent in V for Vendetta.Ashley Judd, in addition to getting nearly all the best lines (Stockard Channing's "fornication" prayers were in there too) managed to look both ordinary and hot enough to sizzle.James Frain doesn't have a look which lends itself to gentle romantic lead.None of the other principals left any great impression on me.Overall, I find I am left squarely between two stools. On one hand, I can't deny that I got a certain amount of enjoyment from watching this film, and I can't readily identify why. On the other, I really, really dislike films which take place in something approximating the real world (necessarily, in order to set up the disadvantages which befall the protagonists), and which then pull happy but totally unrealistic solutions out of a hat. Forrest Gump was one such movie: this is another.