Where the Heart Is

Where the Heart Is is a humorous and heartwarming film starring Ashley Judd, Natalie Portman, Stockard Channing and Sally Field. The heroine of the film is a seventeen-year-old girl named Novalee Nation. As the movie starts out, we see Novalee and her boyfriend Willy are expecting a baby and moving from their run-down trailer in Tennessee to supposedly greener pastures in California. Novalee is highly suspicious of the number five due to the fact that all of her bad experiences somehow revolve around the number five. While traveling across Oklahoma in their beat-up car, Novalee convinces Willy to stop at a local Wal-Mart so that she can use the bathroom and buy some new shoes to replace hers that were lost. She apparently has only one pair, and they fell out of the bottom of the car. Willy begrudgingly pulls over and gives her some money for shoes. When Novalee's change ends up being for five dollars and fifty five cents, she panics. Upon rushing out to the parking lot, she discovers that Willy has left her bag on the road. She is now alone, pregnant and has just over five dollars to her name. Unsure where to go or what to do next, Novalee ends up living in the Wal-Mart. Her childlike innocence shows through when the audience is shown her running tab titled “I owe Wal-Mart” showing the food she has consumed from the store. Novalee meets and befriends a colorful and eclectic group of people while wandering the town during the day and still secretly living in the Wal-Mart at night. Her new friends include an eccentric recovering alcoholic named Sister Husband and her boyfriend, Wal-Mart photographer Moses Whitecotton, single mother and nurse Lexie Coop, and cranky librarian Forney. After the birth of her daughter Novalee finds a home for the both of them living with her good friend and mentor Sister Husband. While there Novalee learns that she is capable of more than she believes and finally is able to find the family life that she so desperately craves.