Heavy 'Heart' Slows Down Movie

Joan Cusack Only Jolt To Otherwise Sleepy Film

Nancy Bresson, Staff Writer
May 1, 2000, 6:09 p.m. EDT

In what is supposed to be a dramatic moment toward the end of "Where The Heart Is," my sister leaned over to me and whispered with heavy sarcasm, "Oh, I think that was a metaphor."

"Heart," starring Natalie Portman as the very pregnant 17-year-old Novalee Nation, is full of heavy-handed metaphors. You've got your "Touch the baby's heart!" moment to prove how heartless her boyfriend, Willy Jack Pickens (Dylan Bruno), is. When Willy Jack abandons Novalee at a Wal-Mart in the middle of Oklahoma, she is welcomed into town by Sister Husband (Stockard Channing), whose truck literally has "Welcome Wagon" painted on its side.

Novalee accidentally stays in the Wal-Mart after closing time and finds it a suitable home for six weeks. She can't stay in the store all day, so Novalee visits the local library and meets Forney (James Frain), the exasperated and lonely librarian. Her stay in the megamart ends when she goes into labor and Forney literally jumps through the store's glass to help her.

Metaphor time: Like her baby making its entrance into the world, Novalee is forced to enter this new world around her and grow up in it.

Five years pass during the length of the film, during which Novalee gets close to Sister Husband and Lexie (Ashley Judd), the maternity ward nurse at the local hospital who can't seem to stop having children (oh! I think that was a metaphor!). Yet the movie's pace is so slow that in the final scene, you sigh rather than feel triumphant for Novalee.

Joan Cusack, playing Willy Jack's ruthless music agent Ruth Meyers, offers the film's few signs of life. She screams and punches her way through her scenes in which she tries to groom Willy Jack for a big music career that never happens.

"Where The Heart Is," based on the "Oprah Book Club"-approved novel by Billie Letts, tries too hard to be inspirational -- all those heavy metaphors are meant to add depth and meaning to Novalee and the characters around her. It's too much for the film to carry, however, so the end result is this long and flat story.

I looked at my sister and said, "I remember liking the book a lot more."

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