Evelyn Ryan (Julianne Moore) loves winning contests, but more importantly, she needs to as her husband Kelly (Woody Harrelson) drinks all the extra money and then some. This film is based on the memoir her daughter Tuff (Ellary Porterfield) wrote just after her death but Tuff (real name Terry) isn't the narrator, instead Evelyn is but it is done in such an odd way, especially the toaster scene in the very beginning, and is without a doubt the weakest part of the film.
Though Evelyn has an upbeat attitude, her life was far from happy, begging her husband for milk money and sneaking around him wWhen he is drinking and his baseball team is losing. Fortunately, for the most part, her winnings come just in the nick of time to hold the family together. Her husband is both proud of her great skill but upset that his co-workers pick on him because of all of her winnings. But she does truly love him and he loves her, as he is devastated when he accidentally causes her to fall on some broken milk jugs. Kelly is more than just an alcoholic, he is so attached that when she finally travels for a day, he believes that she finally left him. She answers smartly with the "I would never leave the kids with you."
Evelyn is not infallible, upset when she has to beg the milkman to leave the milk anyway and she will pay him back next week and when her husband can't pay the mortgage and the family will have to split up, she breaks down, but things work out and even Kelly comes through, if he had to die to do it.
While the film is pretty good, telling a simple story well, the book is far better and some things are changed. In the film, Evelyn doesn't get to go to New York with her son Bruce (Trevor Morgan) because another one of her sons gets arrested but in the book she did and Bruce couldn't sleep because it was so quiet.
The performances are good, though I wish the kids would have had more personality and been introduced better. And Moore's big speech to Tuff would have had a bigger effect if Tuff had been the narrator and a bigger part in the film. But Moore and Harrelson are excellent though Laura Dern is wasted in the small role of another contest winning housewife.
The film's best scene is when Evelyn wins a grocery shopping spree and how she planned out everything, loading up her cart with meat and exotic foods, stuff her family had never tried before. She may have longed to travel but has no regrets of how her life went, truly loving her children, and valuing their successes. This film didn't win any awards, nor did it deserve to, but it tells an inspiring story and Moore more than does the role justice. I just wish the script had been as strong as she was. Grade: B
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