Where the Heart Is Information

Where the Heart Is is a 2000 drama/romance film directed by Matt Williams. The movie stars Natalie Portman, Stockard Channing and Ashley Judd. The screenplay, written by Lowell Ganz, is based on the best-selling novel by Billie Letts.

The film follows five years in the life Novalee Nation, starting when she is a pregnant 17-year-old girl from Tennessee who is abandoned by her boyfriend at a Wal-Mart in a small Oklahoma town. She secretly moves into the Wal-Mart store, gives birth to her baby, attracting media attention, and sets up a life with the help of new friends.

Plot

At seventeen years old and seven months pregnant Novalee Nation (Natalie Portman) sets off on a road trip from Tennessee to California with her ignorant ne'er-do-well boyfriend, Willy Jack Pickens (Dylan Bruno). In Sequoyah, Oklahoma, Novalee asks her boyfriend to stop at the local Wal-Mart so that she can go to the bathroom and buy some shoes. When the register displays the amount of $5.55 – the number 5 is associated with many bad events in her life – she panics, runs outside and finds that her boyfriend has left.

Returning to the store, Novalee meets Sister Husband (Stockard Channing), a woman who runs the Welcome Wagon in town. Novalee also meets a photographer named Moses Whitecotton (Keith David) who becomes her mentor in later years. Later that evening, Novalee feels sick and runs into the bathroom to vomit, and when she comes out again she discovers that the store is closed, locked, and dark. She soon figures out how to live undetected in the Wal-Mart.

Novalee visits the library and meets Forney Hull (James Frain), who looks after his sister (the librarian), whose health has been ruined by alcoholism. Novalee learns from Sister Husband that Forney dropped out of Bowdoin College in Maine and wanted to be a history teacher before he had to leave school.

One night in the Wal-Mart, Novalee wakes up from the pain of labor. When she falls to the floor in pain, she notices that she is in aisle 5 and drags herself to the next aisle. Forney, who watched her go into the store at closing time, jumps through a plate-glass window and helps deliver her baby daughter.

Novalee wakes up in the hospital to find she is a media celebrity for giving birth in a Wal-Mart. She befriends her nurse, Lexie Coop (Ashley Judd), and tells her that her daughter's name will be Americus – as Moses had suggested she give her baby a strong name. Lexie reveals that she is a single woman with four children by three different men. Novalee's mother (Sally Field), who abandoned her as a child, has seen her on television and appears at the hospital. Her mother says that the two women can get an apartment together, takes the $500 that Novalee received from the President of Wal-Mart, and agrees to pick up Novalee and Americus the next morning. Her mother never shows up, and Sister Husband comes to pick up Novalee and offers to let Novalee and the baby live at her house.

Novalee's ex-boyfriend Willy Jack Pickens is shown getting into trouble with the law, trying to develop as a country singer while in prison, and after prison he signs on with music agent Ruth Meyers (Joan Cusack).

Novalee is shown to be enjoying her life at Sister Husband's house, sharing a friendship with Forney, working at Wal-Mart and having a pregnancy scare after sleeping with a young mechanic in town. One night, while Novalee and Forney are getting Christmas trees, Forney remarks that Americus is 5 months old that day. Novalee panics over her unlucky number and races home to find out that Americus was kidnapped. Sister Husband tells the police about the extremely religious couple from Midnight, Mississippi, who came to her house to give the "Wal-Mart Baby" the word of God. Novalee remembers that, in the hospital, she received a card from Midnight saying her baby was an abomination under God. The police quickly apprehend a vehicle with Mississippi plates and Americus is found safe in Baby Jesus's place in a nativity scene outside a church.

Five years pass, and Novalee begins an award winning career as a photographer with the help of Moses. When a tornado blows through town, Sister Husband is killed and their home is destroyed. After the funeral, one of Sister Husband's friends from Alcoholics Anonymous informs Novalee that she is the beneficiary of Sister's estate, worth around $41,000. Novalee proceeds to build a new home for herself and Americus on Sister's land.

One day, Novalee receives a call from Lexie's oldest child. She rushes over to find Lexie bruised and battered, and brings her and her (now) five children to live with her and Americus in their new house. Lexie tells Novalee that her latest boyfriend had gone to her house and tried to molest her two oldest children, when Lexie returned home from work early and caught him. Lexie eventually marries the ordinary but reliable "Ernie the Exterminator" and has a sixth child.

When Forney's sister passes away and he does not appear at the funeral, Novalee finds him in a hotel and comforts him. After they sleep together, Forney says he loves her and wants to get a factory job and stay with her. Novalee lies and says she does not love him—which frees him to return to Bowdoin College in Maine.

On Americus's 5th birthday, Novalee is paranoid about her party because of the unlucky 5. She picks up a newspaper and reads a story about a double amputee being robbed of his wheelchair. The man proves to be Willy Jack, who lost his legs when he became an endless drunk after being sued for copyright infringement for "his" hit song. Novalee visits Willy in the hospital and tells him about what happened to her. He admits that he lied to her when he told her that he didn't feel the baby's heart beat the day he left her behind. Willy says he wishes he could go back and undo the lie, because of how one lie can change your whole life. Willy explains people lie because they're "scared, crazy, or just mean". Novalee realizes that she made a similar mistake lying to Forney. She drives Willy Jack home to Tennessee and then continues to Maine to find Forney at college. Novalee admits to him that she lied and that she really loves him and they return to Oklahoma to get married in their Wal-Mart.

Differences between novel and film

In the novel:

• Novalee finds the number 5 very unlucky in the movie and the number 7 unlucky in the book.
• Sister Husband has brown hair in the movie and blue hair in the book.
• Lexie marries Leon Yoder (Ernie the Exterminator was not in the book).
• Forney does return to college until Novalee comes back to confess her lie in the movie but in the book Forney does not return to college; instead he travels around the nation. He eventually settles in Chicago and begins working in a bookstore.
• Forney and Novalee did get married in a Wal-Mart but in the book they do not get married at all.
• Lexie has 5 kids with 4 different men and pregnant with a sixth child but a fifth man.
• In the book, Lexie is obese. She is constantly trying new fad diets and weight loss schemes.
• Benny Goodluck is left out of the film version.

Cast

Actor	Role
Natalie Portman	Novalee Nation
Ashley Judd	Lexie Coop
Stockard Channing	Thelma 'Sister' Husband
Joan Cusack	Ruth Meyers
James Frain	Forney Hull
Dylan Bruno	Willy Jack Pickens
Keith David	Moses Whitecotton
Sally Field	Mama Lill
Margaret Hoard	Mary Elizabeth Hull

Music

Original music for the film was produced by Mason Daring. A soundtrack was released by RCA Records.

"That's the Beat of a Heart" was performed by The Warren Brothers and featured Sara Evans, the videoclip for the song featured a number of scenes from the film.

"Flies on the Butter" is played during the end credits and was written by Austin Cunningham.

Reception

Regarding Natalie Portman's portrayal of Novalee Nation, Roger Ebert said that "Portman is quite an actress".

The film opened in theaters in the United States on April 8, 2000. Where the Heart Is accumulated (USD)$8,292,939 in its opening weekend, opening at number 4.

The film went on to make $33,772,838 at the United States box office, just over twice its budget. It made $7,090,880 in international box office, for a worldwide total of $40,863,718.

Roger Ebert states, "This movie is so heavy on incident, contrivance, coincidence, improbability, sudden reversals and dizzying flash-forwards (sometimes years at a time) that it seems a wonder the characters don't crash into each other in the confusion."