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The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
Metascore
58 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 28 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 28
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 28
  3. Negative: 1 out of 28
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    Avoids obvious sentiment and predictable emotion and shows this woman somehow holding it together year after year, entering goofy contests that for her family mean life and death.
  2. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    88
    Anderson is the rare filmmaker who doesn't want to use the actress as an instrument or to exploit her independent-movie cachet. She has freed Moore to be what she hasn't been with many directors: credibly human.
  3. Variety
    Reviewed by: Robert Koehler
    80
    Even more than in "Far From Heaven," Moore's housebound wife is a study in pent-up brilliance, with extraordinary devotion to her family.
  4. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Peter Debruge
    75
    With its predictable confrontations and tacky fantasy sequences, you feel writer/director Jane Anderson steering the material toward schmaltzy movie-of-the-week territory at every turn.
  5. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    75
    Startlingly original film.
  6. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    75
    A heartwarming, inspirational tale.
  7. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Angel Cohn
    75
    Moore and Harrelson are very well cast.
  8. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    75
    An engaging film bolstered by the stellar performance of Julianne Moore.
  9. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Sara Brady
    75
    Overall, a modest but lovely achievement for Anderson, Moore, and Harrelson, and a family entertainment in the best senses of the words.
  10. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    75
    The movie constantly verges on being a parody, but Moore's performance stays miraculously away from caricature.
  11. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Sheri Linden
    70
    A spirited comic drama, toplined by Moore's lovely performance.
  12. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    70
    Even though Prize Winner ultimately asks us to swallow that golfball-size happy pill, Anderson and her not-so-secret weapon Moore are actually clawing their way toward something deeper and far more complex than a cheerful, embroidered slogan.
  13. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    70
    Gently, affectionately and with wit, this lovely movie gives the 1950's its due, but not for a moment does it go overboard and make you want to go back there.
  14. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    70
    An honest tear-jerker.
  15. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    70
    It has its own subversive power, as it elevates one family's struggle for working-class survival and valorizes a woman of simple faith and inner strength.
  16. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    63
    The actress' [Julianne Moore's] goodwill, alone, holds this schizophrenic story together - if just barely.
  17. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Chris Kaltenbach
    58
    Anderson sees her subject as little more than a game-show contestant. One suspects the real Evelyn Ryan deserved far better.
  18. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    50
    It's tough to imagine a guy who won't squirm through this tale of 1950s housewife Evelyn Ryan.
  19. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    50
    No one expects documentary realism in these memoir-to-movie transfers. It's reasonable, however, to expect more vibrant and expressive fictionalized treatment than this.
  20. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    50
    Only an actor of Moore's calibre could begin to add a bit of credible flesh to these hallowed bones.
  21. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    50
    Moore's scenes with a miscast-but-game Harrelson offer a study in how spouses learn to handle even their partners' most destructive impulses, but in most other moments, Anderson fails to get beyond the surface of her characters' lives.
  22. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Melissa Anderson
    50
    Shameless Eisenhower-era corn.
  23. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    50
    This screen adaptation never quite jells, veering from family drama to stale 50s consumer kitsch, but it's anchored by strong performances from Julianne Moore.
  24. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    42
    Anderson's adaptation is heavy on production numbers in which jingles come to life and light on conveying any real feelings of Eisenhower-era darkness the prizewinner herself might have felt during her decades of marriage to an abusive, drunken man.
  25. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Tim Grierson
    40
    There's something terminally small about this big-screen melodrama, with its trite characterizations of fighting parents, empty pockets and kind hearts.
  26. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Melissa Levine
    40
    The film congeals from dripping sentimentality into emulsified schmaltz when it brings in the actual Ryan family, all 10 children (now in their fifties and sixties), for a final scene. The intentions are clearly honorable, and we certainly wish these people well, but this isn't a memorial service, it's a movie.
  27. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Carina Chocano
    40
    But it's one thing to write a loving ode to your mother; another to direct an ode to an ode.
  28. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    38
    This maudlin, fact-inspired and anti-feminist dramedy is no "Far From Heaven" or "The Hours."
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.6 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 9 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 7
  3. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. MarcK
    6
    I know it's so cliche to say, "it wasn't as good as the book," but I must say that here. The book was tremendous...this movie was merely a bit above average. Yes, Julianne Moore does an excellent job in the title role. But Woody Harrelson isn't so good as the drunk Dad/Husband. In the book, he was pretty much a peripheral character, but in movies, there is a demand for dramatic tension, which is why that role is much more prominent than in the book.… Full Review »
  2. ChadShiira
    8
    Since the filmmaker didn't want to throw dad(Woody Harrelson) under a bus, "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio doesn't quite add up, because the historical Kelly, we intuit, was a lot drunker than this film would care to admit. There's a disconnect between the family's attitude towards Kelly and his actual on-screen actions. Mr. Kelly drinks, but he's not a roaring drunk like Charles Bukowski. What man alive wouldn't take to the bottle if his disposition was being married with ten kids? Things get a little overblown when Tuff (Ellary Porterfield) jumps on her father at the flashpoint of a strapped-for-cash-inspired family crisis. Her actions suggest a history of spousal abuse, which is, at best, inferred. Nonetheless, "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio" is a good film that flirts with greatness when Tuff emerges from the obscurity of her voluminous siblings and engages in mother-daughter heart-to-hearts with Evelyn(Julianne Moore) on a road trip across the state line. Like "Almost Famous", the film starts off as a personal story, and then tells the larger story of an impasse in American history. In the Crowe film, Lester Bangs saw how rock and roll was on the brink of codification but mentored young William Miller to be impervious to its evils. In this film, Evelyn foresees "the death of literacy"(when writing contests are replaced by instant riches that require no talent, in which she accurately diagnoses as a symptom), but inspires three of her daughters to be writers anyway. Moore, once again("Far From Heaven", of course, being the left bookend), proves to be a poetess of the pre-bra burning woman. "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio" is a real sleeper. It committed "hara-kiri" by sticking with such an ungainly title.… Full Review »
  3. TinaA.
    10
    Julianne Moore is brilliant, and this movie is amazing.
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