DVD/VIDEO: The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

THE PRIZE WINNER OF DEFIANCE, OHIO (2005)

My Rating: **** ½ (out of *****)
Starring: Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern, Trevor Morgan, Ellary Porterfield
Director: Jane Anderson

My Review:
When this unassuming little flick barely made a blip on the movie radar in 2005, I was mildly interested due to the cast, but didn’t make the effort to get out the art house circuit and see it. What a shame, because Prize Winner is one of the year’s very best films.

Julianne Moore does it again, turning in yet another stellar performance as Evelyn Ryan, a real-life 1950’s homemaker who is forced to use everything she has to provide for her ten children, as her husband Kelly (a remarkable and heartfelt Woody Harrelson) is, as the AA Big Book states, an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. At a time when women were still often seen as less than in comparison with men, Evelyn carries the additional weight of being treated as if she is somehow to blame for her husband’s inability to provide.

Evelyn already does everything for her family, but Kelly keeps paying out more for booze than he brings in. So, Evelyn uses her knack for concocting catchy phrases to enter contests for commercial jingles. Ultimately, the Ryans are faced with multiple threats of loss, and each time, it is Evelyn’s courage, hope, wordsmithing, and ruthlessly positive outlook that keep them afloat during the most tumultuous storms of circumstance.

Evelyn is a woman of remarkable character. Whether Kelly is whining piteously, begging for forgiveness, offering empty promises of “I’ll change,” or frightening the kids with one of his drunken rampages, Evelyn never once belittles or undermines her husband. She speaks the truth, to be sure, but does so in a way that will not cause any more damage to his standing with the children than he has already caused himself. She consistently displays incredible innovation, unflappable optimism, razor-sharp intelligence, and Christ-like servant leadership - even to the one who causes her the most harm - over and over and over again.

Writer and director Jane Anderson has taken Terry Ryan’s memoirs of her own experiences with her mother and fashioned them into an uncommonly warm and loving tribute to moms, and indeed to all who selflessly seek to serve others, forgive “a multitude of sins,” and not let life’s difficulties rob them of its joys. Julianne Moore perfectly embodies these characteristics as Evelyn, a woman who manages to triumph even while faced with more than her share of shattered hopes and dreams. Moore captures the almost psychotic cheeriness of the 1950’s media portrayals of housewives (and of women in general), but rather than going to the extremes of skewering or blindly idealizing, she puts flesh and blood behind the twinkling smiles and colorful pinafores, showing us a real woman who fought real battles, but also found genuine happiness and peace in her life. Hers is the privilege of portraying one of the most heroic characters in film history, and Moore pulls it off without a hitch.

Much praise is also due to Anderson’s beautiful screen adaptation, confident and balanced direction, and courageously creative choice to tell this sometimes dark and intense story using the cheery media clichés of the era to do so. Anderson achieves some nice irony by doing the latter, but never becomes biting or sarcastic in the process. No, Anderson is concerned with truth here. Yes, the family suffers great hardships. Yes, Kelly causes much pain due to his addiction. But Anderson doesn’t do what lesser filmmakers would have done by stooping to the level of easy potshots or windy feminist rhetoric. Like Evelyn, she proves herself a woman of character by bestowing compassion upon all of her principals, and in so doing, manages to craft a film that is light, breezy, heartbreaking, gritty, beautiful, fun, humorous, devastating, nostalgic, and richly rewarding, all at once. By uncomfortably but truthfully juxtaposing oceans of suffering with islands of rapturous, life-giving joy, Prize Winner gives us a film that deserves to be seen and honored. It is an absolute must.

PG-13, for mature thematic elements, domestic conflict involving aggressive and sometimes frightening behavior, some strong language, and a disturbing image