Having made those criticisms, the real highlight of the movie for me was Natalie Portman as Novalee. The end of the movie (revolving around the relationship between Novalee and Forney (James Frain) was also telegraphed quite early on. Where did that come from and why? It made a relatively enjoyable movie very heavy, and it was a heaviness that - for me at least - never really disappeared. I also felt that it was totally unnecessary to include (albeit - thankfully - only for a few minutes) a theme about child molestation. I didn't care what happened to him - even though some of what happened was poetic justice - and the movie could have been shortened by 20 or 30 minutes - without losing a thing - if all his scenes had been simply cut. None of his scenes really served to advance the plot in any way, and quite frankly, the guy was a loser who abandoned his pregnant girlfriend. I questioned the need to continually bring us back to Willie Jack's (the baby's father) attempts to get a singing career going. But the last 45 minutes or so really unravelled rather quickly. After giving birth to the baby in the store, she is swindled and abandoned by her mother (Sally Field) but survives and flourishes thanks to the kindness of some rather eccentric strangers. For the first 1:15 or so, I was really enjoying this sweet and funny movie about a young girl (Novalee, played by Natalie Portman) dealing with being pregnant and unmarried, who is abandoned by her boyfriend (Dylan Bruno) and takes up residence (unknown to anyone) in a local Wal-Mart.
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