MovieChat Forums > The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2007) Discussion > I watched this movie while home with the...

I watched this movie while home with the flu...

posted 17 years ago by Mccadoo
3 replies | jump to latest

I relapsed rather badly from the viewing...

It was so sickly sweet I also suspect that I've developed diabetes...

This was not a portrayal of 1950's middle America, it was a caricature of it...or a cartoon of it...

It's amazing how far Laura Dern has fallen, if her performance had been any more over the top her head would have exploded...

And I agree with an earlier poster; Juliane Moore appearing next to the daughter at the end and kissing her on the cheek was just creepy, no other word for it, just plain creepy.

Even more twisted was the scene with Julianne Moore sitting on the sofa working up a jingle for a contest; she's happily singing away, laughing like an idiot, all the kids are just laaaaughing along with her, while her husband makes up jingles of his own about how horrible and empty his life is...what a heartwarming scene!

I don't know the family, have no idea what kind of people they are, this is not a critique of them, but of the movie. It was only weakness from my illness that prevented me from reaching for the remote and changing the channel. By the time the credits rolled I felt like dancing maniacally through a field of clover and whistling Zipidee Dooda out of my a#@hole. Then finding a woman in an iron lung and patting her on the head. This movie was just way way over the top.

[–] taurusred 12 years ago

Ok.

[–] findyourwayinthedark 11 years ago

Laura Dern over the top? I think not.
Wild at Heart holds that distinction.

[–] badger-ken 11 years ago

I disagree on the singing/laughing scene.

She is deadly serious about the jingles - it's what keeps them off the streets and with food on the table.

Winning jingles are happy, snappy jingles - so she's trying to put herself into that frame of mind, and the judges frame of mind. Her husband, who resents that she needs to do this, and takes it as a sign of his inability to provide, tries to mock both her and himself.

Julianne Moore's character isn't idiotically happy, far from it - she's under enormous pressure and trying to "play the game" that the jingles demand.