Natalie Portman is best-known for the makeup and headgear that she sported in last year's blockbuster The Phantom Menace. But she made waves in film circles long before that, with precocious turns in Luc Besson's The Professional and 1996's Beautiful Girls. After her Golden Globe nomination for last year's Anywhere But Here, it was only a matter of time before Portman starred in her own vehicle. Unfortunately, Where the Heart Is has more in common with The Phantom Menace than Natalie's other films.

Not that Heart (the full title is the first wrong turn of the film) is a sci-fi epic. Rather, it's a tale of a 17-year-old whose boyfriend abandons her in the middle of Oklahoma (no reference to Tatooine should be implied). As if Oklahoma wasn't bad enough, her first name is Novalee (no reference to any Star Wars character should be implied) and she's stuck in a Wal-Mart (no reference to the Evil Empire should be implied). Oh yeah, she's also several months pregnant.

Novalee decides that a Wal-Mart is a perfect place to set up house. It's not such a great place to have a baby, however. No problem, there--the local librarian who's taken a liking to Novalee breaks through the plate-glass window and saves the day. In the hospital, she meets Lexie (Ashley Judd, Double Jeopardy), a good-hearted nurse with bad luck in men. Do you notice a trend?

Actually, the trend is more pronounced than that, and here's where The Phantom Menace parallel truly comes alive. I can't remember a movie where the main characters were so good, and the evil ones were so bad. It's a moral compass with only two directions. For fun, you can play the Where the Heart Is matching game. Match the villain with the heinous crime he commits. The direct descendants of Hitler are: a) Christian fundamentalists, b) a successful businessman, c) a Country singer, d) an evil mother, and e) a monster tornado. The crimes that terrorize our heroines are: 1) abandonment in a parking lot, 2) stealing a baby, 3) killing a friend while she's doing a good deed, 4) molesting a five-year-old, and 5) stealing $500 from our protagonist. It's no surprise that Where the Heart Is was featured on Oprah's book club.

That's not to say the source material wasn't a fine novel. The problem is that screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (City Slickers) have tried to cram every possible narrative event in a two-hour movie. Besides the above traumas, there is another death, a train accident, two weddings, a house to build, and a long-simmering romance to resolve.

We also, for absolutely no apparent reason, follow the fall and rise and fall of the despicable boyfriend. Why the filmmakers decided to waste any screen time (much less the six scenes he receives) on this unappealing character is beyond me, though it does allow Joan Cusack a fabulous cameo as a caustic record executive.

All of this plot only serves to distract us from the wonderful characters the movie conjures. Novalee is a simple, honest girl (she keeps track of what she owes Wal-Mart while she stays there) who grows up to be an amateur photographer and a solid single mother. Lexie refuses to frown despite raising five or eight children (even Novalee can't keep track) on her own. Sister Husband (Stockard Channing, Six Degrees of Separation), a middle-aged woman, helps Novalee get on her feet. And Forney (James Frain, Hilary and Jackie) is the young librarian who's abandoned his hopes of college to take care of his ailing sister, when Novalee arrives to give him an entirely different set of dreams.

The biggest frustration with Heart is that it could've been so much better. The interaction between Portman, Judd, and Channing is great. They seem to genuinely enjoy each other, and their tender moments ring true. Ashley Judd has to be one of the most radiant actresses working today. When she smiles, the whole theater lights up. And Channing takes the role of a Southern woman with her own brand of Christianity and gives it an appealing quirkiness that meshes perfectly with the rest of the cast. 

The real star, though, is Portman, and she carries the film with grace. Her porcelain beauty has made teenage boys and middle-aged men pine away. And her low-key but highly effective acting style has charm to spare. If we could just strip away the plot, Where the Heart Is would be a delightful film. As it is, wait for video. 

J. Robert Parks