The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio - PG-13
Common Sense Note
Parents should know the movie includes several tense family scenes, specifically when the father is inebriated and the mother must smooth over his anger and ugliness in front of their children. At one point, furious that a son has had a car accident, the father starts hitting and chasing him through the house; and in an especially disturbing scene, following a brief struggle, the mother falls on glass milk bottles she's carrying, spilling milk and her blood (from the broken glass) all over the floor, as children look on and cry. The kids reveal their own fears and resentment, fretting that Mom will leave even for a day, and once singing a version of "Row your boat" where they imagine throwing Dad overboard "just to hear him scream."
Families can talk about Evelyn and Kelly's relationship, as she repeatedly takes care of him. Why would this couple stay together when it's clear they and their children are miserable? Would things be different if this movie was set in the present? Why or why not?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Jane Anderson's THE PRIZE WINNER OF DEFIANCE, OHIO is a doting, adorable, and sometimes disturbing portrait of a remarkable '50s housewife, Evelyn Ryan (Julianne Moore). (It's based on a book by one of Ryan's real-life daughters, Terry.) She first appears talking about herself, with two Evelyns appearing in frame: one the "good" (complacent, family-focused) mom and wife, the other literally standing beside herself, narrating her own activities.
As she acts out this split, Evelyn follows a strikingly stereotypical trajectory: her family, 10 kids and machinist husband Kelly (Woody Harrelson), depend on her as their rock. At the same time, she pursues her own interests (she wanted to be a journalist before she married) by writing ad copy, or jingles, for various commercial products (Dr. Pepper, Dial soap, Maidenform, Beechnut, and Paper Mate). She's especially good at this, winning enough prizes to help support the family, increasingly important as Kelly slips into depression and alcoholism.
As Evelyn both supports and exploits an expanding commercial culture through her "contesting," the film doesn't quite challenge the surface she's perpetuating. But it does illustrate it in some detail, including an animated montage that accompanies her listing of prizes (a palm tree, a lifetime supply of birdseed, clothing, and a pony), and the Affadaisies, a coterie of other contesters organized by Dortha (Laura Dern). One member is an always beaming lady in an iron lung that's painted happy-yellow (such irony, while perverse, gives the movie a brief, welcome edge).
Diffusing Kelly's sometimes violent outbursts (scary to the kids, who hide their faces and cover their ears) by laughing, joking, or cajoling, Evelyn rarely reveals the toll it takes on her, and then, usually, to instruct her children in the value of optimism. The film's most alarming sequence, however, exposes Evelyn's pain explicitly and bizarrely. Arguing with Kelly for the unmpteenth time about his inability to pay for the weekly milk delivery, she enters the house carrying a dozen or so bottles. Their disagreement escalates, and as she pulls away from him, she falls to the floor, milk and glass flying everywhere in slow motion. Evelyn, her wrists bloodied by her effort to break her fall into shards of milk bottle glass, struggles to get to her feet amid the slippery red and white liquid that swirls around her.
Here she lies, the ultimate mother, at once ideal and wretched, awash in symbols of her function in life. When, later that day, Kelly helps her remove her milk-soaked girdle (could a metaphor be more overt?), he apologizes for his oafishness, again. "I just want to make you happy," he moans, his platitude demonstrating the lack of imagination that is his real crime in Evelyn's eyes. And so she schools him: "I don't need you to make me happy. I just need you to leave me alone when I am."
Kelly can't comprehend the devastation that impels this request, as the movie posits him as just too dumb to "get" her. But you're left with another sense of Evelyn altogether, another self (that split again) who is independent and fierce, sustained below the surface of her functions as durable housewife and loving mom.
Families who enjoy this movie may also want to see Julianne Moore playing other 1950s' housewives, in The Hours or Far From Heaven (both rated R). You might also want to look at actual 1950s movies, such as Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford as a housewife who resists the role) or The Tunnel of Love (with Doris Day).
Rate It!
| Content | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CS | adults | kids | ||
Sexual Content |
 |
 |
|
|
ViolenceMom is injured during a fall in the home (alarming her kids); dad becomes violent against furniture when drunk. |
|
 |
|
|
LanguageSome cursing, out of frustration and anger (including the f-word). |
|
|
|
|
Message |
|
|
|
|
Social BehaviorDad is a terrible model, depressed and abusive; mom is a "saint," kids are confused. |
 |
 |
|
|
CommercialismAll about advertising: brands named include: Dial, Beechnut gum, Frigidaire, Parkay, Ritz crackers, Samonsite, Black Label beer, Dr. Pepper. |
|
|
|
|
Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoDad is an unhappy, belligerent alcoholic. |
|
|
|
|
