Herald rating: * * *
Running time: 121 mins
Rental: Now
Review: Ewan McDonald
Billie Letts' bestseller tells of Novalee Nation (Natalie Portman), a 17-year-old about-to-be solo mother who's abandoned by her no-good boyfriend, would-be country singer Willy Jack Pickens (Dylan Bruno), in the Sequoia, Oklahoma, version of a Big Red Shed. Novalee lives in a store until she gives birth to little Americus, who's delivered by the lovestruck librarian.
The arrival gets national coverage and Novalee becomes a TV star. She moves in with Sister Husband (Stockard Channing) and her partner, Mr Sprock (Richard Jones), and makes friends with Lexie Coop (Ashley Judd).
Novalee befriends a photographer, Moses Whitecotton (Keith David), and soon she's a gifted photographer. Another time she escapes a tornado and snatches her baby from the eye of the storm.
Novalee's boyfriend, the yodeller, is arrested in the company of a 14-year-old hitchhiker-thief and sent to prison. Novalee's lying mother, Mama Lil (Sally Field), strolls in from New Orleans ... in short, it's a tall story, but one full of endearing eccentrics.
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