One of my all time favorites.

Just what I expected

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

I am sure this film was very popular with a certain segment of the U.S. population during the post-911 Bush Era. I am also sympathetic to the children of the protagonist who felt the need to participate in a testimonial to their mother. I certainly mean no disrespect for Evelyn Ryan's personal legacy. Julianne Moore did the job well. However, I have known many children of Evelyn and Kelly Ryans who are of my generation. They live with the open wounds of this kind of family upbringing even in their 60's and 70's. While some of these women may have found happiness and some form of peace with their choices, it is a massive leap to exonerate them for making those choices for their children. It is also a massive leap to ignore the disservice they did to the role of women in American society. The glossing over of Kelly's nasty alcoholism is rather unforgivable. He was obviously a violent drunk. While it was not portrayed through the Vaseline lens of this movie, I would wager that child abuse and wife beating were part of the story. I feel this qualifies this film as propaganda for alcoholic denial and the denial of domestic abuse in favor of religiosity and enabling. This is the basis for my low rating.

My only quarrel is Hollywood's inability to get the costume, music, and other details of the 50s-60s era accurate.When the main character goes to Goshen, Indiana, she takes country roads instead of the interstate-- which was long finished by 1963.The ladies are all dressed and wearing gloves, but women wouldn't wear gloves in 1963 for anything less formal than a church service or a country club party. The dresses/gloves outfits date from about 1958.The music played in the car on this 1963 trip is "How High the Moon," a hit for Les Paul and Mary Ford in 1951. By 1963, Elvis, the Beatles, and rock and roll were well-established.Also the kids were wearing what look like brand new saddle shoes, and brand new Converse All-stars. Doubtful for this family.Details, but these and others were off.

I was completely blown away by this movie. As far as I was concerned it was unappealing. It had an uninteresting cover and I'd never heard of it, but I decided to give it a shot and I am so glad I did!! The acting was very convincing and the story line was completely unexpected (considering that all I was going on was the title). This mother of 10 and wife was an unexpected hero and I am so glad that, not only was her story told, but that I was able to view this moving film. I have recommended this film to countless friends and now I am recommending it to you, especially to women. Watch the film and be inspired to be a better woman!

"The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio," made me sick to my stomach. Literally. The whole time I was watching it, my stomach churned. I kept watching it because I wanted to see how an alleged comedy would handle its very serious subject matter: alcoholism and domestic abuse."Prize Winner" was advertised as a perky, wholesome entertainment. The opening title sequence is cuteness squared. Happy and sunny, late fifties / early sixties fonts, music, dresses, hairstyles, eyeglasses and make-up evoke that era's suburbia with warmth and accuracy. The costumes and set design alone deserve three stars.The rest of the movie is painful. It depicts a profoundly dysfunctional family. Evelyn Ryan is the mother of ten. A gifted writer, she wins contest prizes in, for those days, huge sums -- sums large enough, in one case, to purchase a modest home.Kelly Ryan, her husband, is a drunk. Kelly is verbally abusive. He also comes close to being physically abusive. He destroys family belongings. He squanders the family's money so badly that Evelyn must humiliate herself, repeatedly, in front of the milkman. The milkman is evil personified. He's more like Dracula than the deliverer of a wholesome product.Evelyn, in response to her abusive husband, is a passive aggressive doormat. She never even learns to drive. She hands over complete financial control to Kelly.The movie wants us to believe that Evelyn is a martyr and a saint and a role model and a gift to humanity and the very best mom her kids ever could have been blessed with. The movie also wants us to believe that Evelyn had to do everything exactly the way she did it. She had to marry a man who was a shiftless drunk; she had to have ten kids by him though she couldn't feed those kids; she had no choice when he became violent.The Catholic church made Evelyn do it. Male police officers made Evelyn do it. The fifties made Evelyn do it. Evelyn had no free will.There's a scene where Evelyn is so without funds that she has to feed her children food full of insects. When the children complain, she says, "Those are not insects. Those are spices." The point is not to blame Evelyn Ryan. The point is that the movie lies to the viewer as much as Evelyn lies to her kids when she feeds them insects.Evelyn married a shiftless drunk, she had ten kids by him, and she handed all power over to him because she wanted to. Evelyn participated in creating a tense home environment every bit as much as her husband. The Catholic church, the police and the 1950s didn't make Evelyn do anything.A movie that told the truth about a woman who fed her own children bugs would not make that woman out to be a blameless martyr, and her husband out to be a complete monster. A movie that told the truth would explore the psychology of a woman who is attracted to alcoholics, and attracted to the martyr role that the wife of an alcoholic often plays.This movie didn't do that. Rather, it played with fire -- took up very painful themes -- and tried to convince the audience that these themes were all fun, wholesome, and sweet. Result? In this viewer, a churning stomach.