StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

saccitygrl Meet pollyanna...errr, I mean evelyn ryan. This movie most likely appeals to the staunchest of home and health, evangelical family values type of viewer who eat their bitterness and frustration with the banality of their lives and pour it into crafting disgusting concoctions garnered from taste of home magazine. Back to the movie-- our 'heroine' is an idiot married to a borderline or narcissistic alcoholic abuser. Her most adept skill is turning a blind eye to reality. How? She preoccupies her mind with TV, radio and newspaper contests. I've known women like, this...they were scattered all over in my extended family. Her legacy are the messed up human beings she produced and released into the world--10 of them in total in this case. Yeah, the good ole days, glad they are dead and gone. No need to revisit much less relive it by making or watching a movie about it.

Tss5078 After seeing this film, I knew it had to be a true story, and sure enough it was. The story of The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is a terrific one, that you just couldn't make up. The book was written by one of a families ten children, about their mother and how she raised their entire family by winning sweepstakes, which were extremely popular in the 50's and 60's. The Ryan family was your typical suburban family, Kelly (Woody Harrelson) worked in a mill and spends most of his paycheck on alcohol. That leaves Evelyn (Julianna Moore) to raise 10 kids on almost no money. Evelyn was in advertising before she became a housewife and had a knack for writing slogans and jingles. As a result of her circumstances, she entered every contest she could find and surprisingly won a large number of them, despite the odds. She won the house they live in, as well as most of the appliances, and even a few cars they sold. The story was truly fantastic and a wonderful tribute to a woman, who in some ways could be considered a modern day working mother. Evelyn was played by Julianna Moore, who gives the performance of her life. Once again, an independent film is overlooked by the Academy, but had this been a major release, there is no doubt in my mind that Moore would have won the Oscar, she is really that good. A good portion of the story is focused on this extraordinary woman, but we do meet her husband and we see her kids at various ages and walks of live. It seems like a movie that could quickly fizzle out, but life is never slow or boring in the Kelly household. On a side note, the author of the book, Evelyn's oldest daughter really made a name for herself with this book and made a cameo at the end of the film. Unfortunately, her career was short lived, as she passed away shortly after the films release. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is the kind of tribute we'd all love to give our parents, but most of our parents didn't do the extraordinary things Evelyn Ryan did. It's a heartwarming story that shows no matter how bad things get, there is always a way, and that's a message we can all relate to.

tlelliott-mn 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.

Danusha_Goska Save Send Delete "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.