The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio - Jane Anderson

Last year's under-the-radar feel-good film The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is an adaptation of a biographical novel of the same title written by Terry Ryan. The novel mostly recounts how a 50's mom was able to raise ten children with the primary help of prizes won from literary and other skill contests. The source material is an excellent example of woman power especially during the 50's wherein beauty contestants would proudly declare that women can never make good presidents since women are presumably emotional and high strung. The film adaptation by Jane Anderson however, while an enjoyable piece of fuzzy fluff, degenerates into typical period drama, more appropriate in television rather than the big screen.

Evelyn Ryan (Julianne Moore) used to work for a publishing company with a promising career ahead of her. However, she married erstwhile crooner Kelly (Woody Harrelson) who, after a car accident, lost his ability to sing and was left to working as a machinist to provide food for his family. Kelly is dependent yet extremely proud. He spends his last few dollars at the liquor store without thinking that he will not be left any money for tomorrow's milk delivery. Evelyn, now a full-time housewife of a household of ten children, has mastered the art of contesting. Prizes arrive at the Ryan doorstep at the most dire of circumstances, saving the family from hunger and inevitable embarrassment. Understandably, Kelly becomes antagonistic of his wife's family-saving talents.

The only other Jane Anderson work I've seen is her segment in These Walls Could Talk 2. The segment, a period piece about two lesbians meeting at a bar and eventually ending up in a relationship, is particularly decent. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is Anderson's first feature film, a huge cross-over from her television and direct-to-video roots. Its direction is interestingly flat, with gushes of promise every once in a while. Anderson resorts to CGI distractions and other gimmickry (like making Evelyn Ryan the narrator plus the main character, using computer-manufactured doubles to create an illusion of two Julianne Moores in the picture) to keep the drama above the entrenched television-quality of the material. As flat as the direction is the obviousness of the intentions of Anderson. Her air of feminism blossoms in the atmosphere of the film and while I appreciate every bit of activism from filmmakers, I'd appreciate a bit of artistry in presentation. Her characters are drawn out in thick stereotypes. Evelyn is the well-loved mother who rarely gets mad and has the patience that would've instantly made her a saint. Kelly is the brooding, no-good father, who, while being pictured as loving and understanding, is still caricaturishly portrayed by Harrelson as the exact paper opposite of the perfect Evelyn. Even the sequencing gives the picture a quality bereft of purely and naturally emotional moments. The scenes are almost fantastically told, giving an air of a tall tale rather than a true story, without emotionality painted straight right there for all of the audience to see. In the end, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio feels lacking, shallow, and undeniably preachy. **/*****