How to Make an American Quilt

How to Make an American Quilt Review

I half expected that How to Make an American Quilt would make me cry, but I never thought that I would start crying in the opening sequence, before anything even happened. They just showed some quilts with the patterns echoed in the rows of crops in the California farmland, and a flashback of Finn Dodd (Winona Ryder) as a young girl at her grandmother's quilting bee. Though How to Make an American Quilt made me cry, it was a good cry. The kind of cry that cleanses all the hairy and troubling emotions you've been burdened with. There was laughter as well. The kind that comes from seeing the all too human and recognizable quirks we all share. Closely observed by the writers, novelist Whitney Otto and screenwriter Jane Anderson, and well played by the excellent cast, especially the older women. Director Jocelyn Moorhouse could sew a quilt and call it How to Make an American Film. She takes the imagery and symbolism of the quilt and carries it through the film, and in a broader sense the intertwining lives of the women in the quilting bee also form a quilt or a tapestry. Well written, well directed, and well played.

Winona Ryder was in her element here. The only thing she stole, however, was my heart. It is almost her trademark to play characters who write, and this was no exception. She is a Berkeley student trying to write a thesis, and has attempted to write several, but always abandons them before the end. She is off chasing another topic, like her free spirited mom, who couldn't stay true to one guy. This time she is writing about tribal traditions of women, and tying it into her grandmother's quilting circle.

While her live-in boyfriend Sam (Dermot Mulroney) is finishing work on the fixer-upper they share in the city, she will spend the summer on her grandmother's farm, finishing her thesis. Though Sam seems to be solid husband material with plans to settle down with Finn and have kids, Finn balks. Like her mother, she has commitment issues. Spending the summer apart is like sending a kleptomaniac to Saks. What were they thinking? Though she should have been put on probation Winona is especially adorable as she is semi-reluctantly involved in a flirtation with a local named Leon (Johnathon Schaech) she meets at the community pool. Those beguiling doe's eyes--not even the arresting officers could resist their charm. Leon's family grows strawberries, and later he will tempt her with freshly picked strawberries, still warm from the sun, all the more enticing for being forbidden fruit.

It is at the pool where Finn starts to learn more about her grandmother's and great aunts' past lives. Constance (Kate Nelligan), who now scares small children, was once a diver. She had a striking figure that drove the men wild. Constance may be bitter, but she was once so sweet, and her various regrets give her every reason. How to Make an American Quilt jumps back and forth in flashbacks and current time. All of the women have interesting stories, and as American Quilt unfolds, we learn their secrets. Great Aunt Glady Joe Cleary (Anne Bancroft) is Mrs. Robinson! Well, I mean, she played Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, and we have actors of that caliber; in American Quilt they are even more experienced and have honed their talent to an even sharper point. Ellen Burstyn plays Finn's Grandmother Hy Dodd, and the two sisters share a secret about Glady Joe's husband Arthur, played by Rip Torn, real name Elmore Rual Torn. Rip Torn really lived up to his name when he was found sprawled on the floor of the Litchfield Bancorp building in his hometown of Salisbury late at night, clutching a loaded revolver while reportedly drunk. He told cops he thought the building was his home. Luckily, the actor's troubles didn't prevent him from turning in a stunning performance in American Quilt.

The poet Maya Angelou plays Anna, who is the leader of the quilting circle, and her daughter Marianna is played by Alfre Woodard. Marianna has lived in Paris where she received marriage proposals in at least five different languages, but she never wanted to be tied down to one man. She met one poet who she thought was her soul mate, but he was already married, and all he left her was a poem on a scrap of paper: "Young lovers seek perfection. Old lovers learn the art of sewing shreds together and of seeing beauty in a multiplicity of patches." Anna and Marianna add a lot of color sense, not only to the quilt, but to the stories of the women who sew the quilt. There is such a thing as a story quilt, and Anna has one that tells of how her mother followed a crow that led her to her true love. The crow was the one key symbol that was woven into the fabric of How to Make an American Quilt that made it whole. Who wants to bet that Finn will eventually follow a crow of her own, wrapped in a quilt, and that will wrap up How to Make an American Quilt?

Requiem for a Dream (Director's Cut) (2000) Ellen Burstyn was Sara Goldfarb
The Cider House Rules (1999) Kate Nelligan was Olive Worthington
That Thing You Do! (1996) Johnathon Schaech was Jimmy Mattingly
Reality Bites (1994) Winona Ryder was Lelaina Pierce
Crooklyn (1994) Alfre Woodard was Carolyn Carmichael
The Thing Called Love (Director's Cut) (1993) Dermot Mulroney was Kyle Davidson
Where the Day Takes You (1992) Dermot Mulroney was King; Adam Baldwin was Officer Black
Heathers (THX Version) (1989) Winona Ryder was Veronica
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) Rip Torn was Nathan Bryce
The Graduate (1967) Anne Bancroft was Mrs. Robinson

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Finn [reading Marianna's soul mate's poem]: Young lovers seek perfection. Old lovers learn the art of sewing shreds together and of seeing beauty in a multiplicity of patches.
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How to Make an American Quilt Overview

The art of quiltmaking becomes a metaphor for being a woman in America, as the stories of members of a quilting group are interwoven with traditional

How to Make an American Quilt Specifications

Based on the bestseller by Whitney Otto, this film seemed to miss all the poetry and the ephemeral charms of the wispy novel by trying to make a concrete movie out of it. Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse (who made a similar hash out of A Thousand Acres), the film centers on Winona Ryder, who is debating her impending marriage and decides to make up her mind while spending the summer with her grandmother (Ellen Burstyn). This leads to a variety of encounters with Grandma and her sewing circle (which includes Anne Bancroft, Kate Nelligan, and Maya Angelou, among others), who reminisce about men, love, and marriage. It's put together piecemeal, like a quilt, but the parts add up to a fragmented, unsatisfying whole, despite some solid acting. --Marshall Fine

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