Title: Where the heart is
Most companies only dream of the kind of product placement Wal-Mart snags in ”Where the Heart Is” when pregnant teen Novalee Nation (Natalie Portman) takes up residence at one of the chain’s stores after being abandoned by her callous boyfriend. Further polishing the retailer’s image is Portman herself, who gushes, ”I had never been to a Wal-Mart before the film, and I fell in love with them. They’re the greatest places.” What sounds like brilliant Hollywood marketing actually began years ago with the author of the best-selling novel, Billie Letts. ”I walked into one of those Wal-Mart super centers and said to my husband, ‘Someone could live here!”’ Letts tells EW Online. ”It wasn’t my purpose to promote it, but I do get letters from people asking me if Wal-Mart paid me to write the book.” Nothing could be further from the truth. ”As a matter of fact, Wal-Mart didn’t like the book,” says Letts, who adds that the chain refused to carry it when it was first published in 1995. ”They originally said that the book did not reflect well on Wal-Mart, but in a later, more official statement they said it was not commercial enough.” Letts says it wasn’t until Oprah Winfrey chose ”Where the Heart Is” for her book club and decided to hold a book club dinner at a Chicago-area Wal-Mart that the company changed its tune. ”I was amazed,” she says. ”Oprah has some clout.” Wal-Mart spokesperson Melissa Barryhill argues that the decision not to carry the book was simply based on supply and demand. ”It wasn’t on the best-seller list,” she says. ”But once our customers started asking for it and we saw it had a proven following, we were happy to carry it.” Though Barryhill says the chain isn’t promoting the film, she says Wal-Mart is not only thrilled with the movie but was also happy to allow the filmmakers to shoot scenes at two of its Texas stores. ”I think the story is very touching and reaffirms that Wal-Mart is for everyone,” she says. Wal-Mart’s flip-flop hasn’t soured Letts on the store. The retired university professor still shops at her local branch. ”In the small town where I live, Wal-Marts have wiped out the traditional Main Street, so that’s become the place everyone goes,” she says. Wal-Mart may not be where everyone’s heart is, but hey, when ya’ need toothpaste, it’ll do.
17 year old Novalee Nation (Natalie Portman) is pregnant and leaving Tennessee for California with boyfriend Willy Jack (Dylan Bruno) in a beat-up Plymouth. Toilet-stopping en route in Oklahoma Novalee emerges from a Wal-Mart to find herself abandoned. She holes up in the Wal-Mart, gets discovered just as she gives birth, is a celebrity for a day and then has to survive in a strange town. But she finds friends - there`s Sister Husband (Stockard Channing) who becomes a surrogate mother, and she finds a sister in Lexie (Ashley Judd) who keeps on having children but losing the men who gave them to her. And then there`s Forney (James Frain) a strange young man who runs the library....This is a cutesy, home-spun story about the family you find when you don`t have a family adapted from Billie Letts` novel by screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. It`s distinguished by Natalie Portman`s performance, she really does bring something special to just about everything she does and even Ashley Judd and Stockard Channing add a certain dignity to what could have been truly hokey roles. British actor James Frain just seems a rather strange choice for Forney whose character does an abrupt swing mid-film. Director Matt Williams admits that there`s a common thread to everything he`s created and that`s a celebration of the American family. If that`s your bag this is your film.David`s Comments: Maudlin and tremendously protracted story which clearly shows its basis in a novel. Much attention if paid to relatively unimportant elements of the plot, and much it it fails to convince (didn`t the supermarket have an alarm system?) The casting of James Frain doesn`t really work, and, though Natalie Portman is sweet, she`s not entirely convincing either.
 Where the Heart Is is a drama-comedy released in 2000, based on a novel by Billie Letts. The story is about a pregnant young girl named Novalee Nation (Natalie Portman), who is abandoned in the parking lot of a Walmart by her boyfriend. She eventually is taken in by a nearby family, gives birth to a daughter she names Americus, and falls in love with the town librarian. No relation to the 1990 John Boorman film. Tropes found in this film include:
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