| How to Make an American Quilt | | Cast : | Winona Ryder, Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn | | Director : | Jocelyn Moorhouse | | Studio : | Universal Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | October 06, 1995 | | DVD Released Date : | September 02, 2003 | | Language : | French (Dubbed), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | February 01, 2005 | | Summary | Worth adding to your collection | Content
 | How To Make An American Quilt is quite a charming film. Being largely set amongst sunny Californian orange orchards, there is a wonderfully warm feel about the cinematography, and an excellent (largely female) ensemble cast who make the most of the poignant story and genteel script. The flowing direction of the piece is the work of Australia's own Jocelyn Moorhouse.
Winona Ryder plays Finn Dodd, a recently betrothed twenty-six year old Berkeley postgraduate student who is trying to finish her Masters thesis - for the third time. Finn decides to spend the summer at her Grandmother's house, leaving her new fiancé, Sam (Dermot Mulroney), to continue the renovations on their home. Ostensibly she is going there to get some peace and quiet, but in reality she is looking for something more. The film follows Finn's mental quest for clarity on her role as a woman and reassurance about her future as a wife.
Her Grandmother Hy (Ellen Burstyn) and great-Aunt Glady (Anne Bancroft) are the mainstays of the Grasse quilting bee, a group of like-minded women who spend their time making beautiful quilts. In the USA, quilting is close to an art form and some quilts can be worth considerable sums of money, but the film gives the impression that the quilts created by this group are much more about companionship than money. Finn has largely grown up around these older ladies, since her mother, a divorced hippie, couldn't control her wanderlust for long enough to provide a stable home. This is the place where, surrounded by the love of this extended family, Finn feels at her most secure.
Finn soon finds a suitable diversion from her writing when a chance meeting with a handsome young stranger, Leon (Johnathon Schaech), tests her fidelity and reinforces her doubts about marrying Sam. As the summer unfolds, Finn watches as the ladies design and sew the panels for her wedding quilt. The theme of the quilt is where love resides, and each of the panels reflects the life and loves of its creator. In a series of vignettes, the formative experience of love for each woman is retold - each of them providing a slightly different different perspective on the true meaning of love. Amongst the many stories, we learn the reason behind the enmity between Hy and Glady, details of Anna's (Maya Angelou) one true love, the cause of Sophia's (Lois Smith) bitterness and the origins of Constance's (Kate Nelligan) affair with Em's husband . Before the summer ends, and Sam returns, Finn must decide for herself what is important in her own life, and whether or not to proceed with her wedding...
How To Make An American Quilt is not quite a classic, but it is very good. The theme is simple - how love affects us in different ways, and how we deal with the consequences - but it is still a thought-provoking piece. The mini-stories feel a little too short and perhaps the film might have had more impact by developing fewer of them with more depth. Less is more, as they say. Nevertheless, the excellent cast all put in performances of the highest calibre. Most of the performances are wonderfully subdued - there is a strong air of melancholy which pervades the piece, and more than a hint of sadness in many of the stories. It won't quite have you reaching for the tissues, but it is touching nonetheless. The cinematography is frequently beautiful and the ambience of each flashback story is conveyed flawlessly. Well worth a rental, and for fans of any of the main cast, this may be worth adding to your collection.
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| Rating | | | Date | January 23, 2005 | | Summary | So So | Content
| Creaking with metaphors, it is a lovely story to watch, with a knockout cast well-skilled in ensemble acting. But it plods along, documenting the making of a wedding quilt that incorporates the lives of each person who contributes to it. Finn Dodd, played by Ryder, at her tentative and mysterious best, is spending the summer with her aunts, while finishing her thesis. She is also engaged to Sam, who seems to get needier, as Finn seems to be getting coldfeet. The quilt is a gift for Finn's wedding, and is a labor of love among a group of women whose lives are intertwined in the northern California wine country, each of them sewing a panel that expresses the theme, "Where love resides." But love resides in many different places among these women - from sisters Glady Jo and Hy, entertainingly played by Bancroft and Burstyn, who are exactly the kinds of aunts anyone would like to have in their family, to the prickly Em, and the unconventional Constance. So many different stories, as interpreted in quilting panels, do not always make a pretty quilt, and much negotiating and compromise is the very nature of putting the quilt together, as it is in life. Not Ryder's best work, but Burstyn and Bancroft are delightful as the pot-smoking aunts, rockin' out to Neil Diamond's "Cherry, Cherry." Simmons is a pleasure to see - with quite a lengthy career behind her, she doesn't appear often. Samantha Mathis is always charming - it would be nice if things would really *click* for her career. Kate Nelligan is fabulous - I was never able to abide her work, presuming her to be like the kind of tight-assed, judgmental characters that she portrayed. But I unexpectedly caught her in "Frankie and Johnny" (with Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer), and could not believe I was watching the woman I had scorned for so long. Now I look forward to seeing her everytime she appears. In spite of many fascinating and multi-faceted characterizations, this vehicle does not serve any of these actresses well. One expects Greatness out of such an enormous and worthy cast, but the Entertain-o-meter stops short of Just Okay, and one wishes that such talent had been applied to a script that utilized their collective talent better. The concept of the story revolving around this group-effort is a fine concept, but director, Moorhouse, has to work hard to keep the story from fragmenting into oblivion. Though not weighing in as a heavyweight, the multitude of fine performances ensures that it is fine entertainment on a lazy day. |
| Rating | | | Date | November 01, 2004 | | Summary | Wonderful Adaptation | Content
| You will not be disappointed by this adaptation. Put together well with the use of flashbacks. It's a great movie to ease you into a comforting afternoon. |
| Rating | | | Date | October 03, 2003 | | Summary | sensitive and human | Content
| I quilt, my other half is an artist. We both viewed this " simple film " and both found a true delight about the emotions and sometimes confusions of the complexity of love. A finefilm for those that can understand love is delightful but at times so complex. A lovely movie that shrares hope beyond love, love beyond dreams!! |
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