[.ca] The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

A loving testimonial to Evelyn Ryan from her daughter, "Tuff":
This 2005 movie is based on Terry "Tuff" Ryan's encomium to her mother, "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less." Evelyn (Julianne Moore) married Kelly Ryan (Woody Harrelson) and had those ten children, and entered every company contest under the sun to win everything from bicycles and a sled to grocery shopping sprees and cars. Evelyn is brilliantly creative, but she lives in a time and place when "Mother" stays home and takes care of the kids while "Father" goes out an earns the daily bread. The problem is that in addition to their being a dozen mouths to feed in the Ryan household, Kelly is an alcoholic. So is the family priest, whose advice to Evelyn is not take the kids and run but shut up and give this loser a happy home. Unfortunately her efforts to do that and to keep the family from starving to death only infuriate the unhappy Kelly even more. Later in the film she explains the world she has created to survive when she tells her husband, "I don't need you to make me happy. I just need you to leave me alone when I am." This admission is the most she will say to her husband, despite his drinking and bursts of violent outrage, his jealousy over her success, and her almost getting seriously hurt literally over spilled milk. But when she gets home from the hospital she writes a humorous poem about it, proving that her creativity is more than just an attempt to win prizes, it is how she survives in this unhappy home. Since Kelly likes to drink a six-pack and put away a pint each night and Evelyn wins cars from time to time, part of me was hoping that such prizes would provide the solution to his problem. But "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio" is about endurance and survival. In the end it is important that Evelyn win rather than having Kelly finally lose. Her ultimate triumph plays out against his ultimate injury added to the constant insults that he lays upon his family. However, that is a victory for her entire family, while the more personal moment of triumph is when she finally gets to visit her pen pal Dortha Schaefer (Laura Dern) and a group of her peers, other women "contesters" who acknowledge her as the best of the bunch. How good is Evelyn? Well, you can keep track of all the things she wins for her family, or you can just notice that her biggest win comes from something she cheerfully admits is not even her best effort. Moore's performance is on point and the best tribute I can pay to it would be that I was never thinking about that performance but about what a great woman Evelyn Ryan was and imagining what she could have done in a world that would have let her talents shine through. There is a nice moment at the end of the film when the real "Tuff" Ryan shows up to share a final moment with the Evelyn portrayed by Moore, and both the final bit before the end credits and one of the special features use snapshots from Evelyn Ryan's scrapbook so that viewers can see the fruits of her victory. Writer-director Jane Anderson last did "Normal," but one of her first scripts was for "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom," and it is interesting to compare and contrast how she makes one mom look so good and other look so bad. There is some redemption for Kelly, although it will be too little far too late for most viewers (and is glossed over in the wrap up), but in the end this film is just from "Tuff" intended: a loving testament to her remarkable mother.