''The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio'' is a 2005 American

biographical film A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of a non-fictional or historically-based person or people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from docudra ...

written and directed by

Jane Anderson Jane Anderson (born 1954 in California) is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and director. She wrote and directed the feature film '' The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio'' (2005), and wrote the Nicolas Cage film '' It Could Happen t ...

. It is based on the book by Terry Ryan, and stars

Julianne Moore Julie Anne Smith (born December 3, 1960), known professionally as Julianne Moore, is an American actress. Prolific in film since the early 1990s, she is particularly known for her portrayals of emotionally troubled women in independent films, ...

Woody Harrelson Woodrow Tracy Harrelson (born July 23, 1961) is an American actor and playwright. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, in addition to nominations for three Academy Award ...

, and

Laura Dern Laura Elizabeth Dern (born February 10, 1967) is an American actress. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a BAFTA Award, and five Golden Globe Awards. Born to actor Bruce Dern and act ...

. The film received a limited release on October 14, 2005.

Plot

''The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio'' is based on the true story of housewife Evelyn Ryan, who helped support her husband, Kelly, and their 10 children by winning jingle-writing contests. Kelly failed to support his family, in part due to apparent

alcoholism Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomi ...

and low self-esteem. He dreamed of being a singer, but lost his singing voice in a car accident, and was often cruel and abusive. Evelyn wins a large freezer, ice buckets, a washer, and dryer set, a trip to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, sleds, boots, a pony, a palm tree, a window, a sports car, a shopping spree in her local grocery store, ice crushers, a camera, dance shoes, a boat motor, pogo sticks, a case of dog food, and a lifetime supply of bird seed. Kelly, who feels like his role as provider for the family is being threatened, criticizes Evelyn, and damages the prizes she wins. Their children side with her. Kelly gets angry at Evelyn, and accidentally knocks her over while she is carrying 12 full glass bottles of milk, causing her to nearly sever a ligament. Evelyn is able to talk him down after each incident, and, temporarily at least, he treats her better. As time passes, the older children start moving out for college and participating in sport career, lessening some burdens to the family. Evelyn is largely isolated because of the hours she has to spend caring for the children, and the lack of local intellectual equals. However, she is contacted by a group of other contest-entering mid-western housewives, and befriends them. Ultimately, Evelyn discovers that Kelly had secretly taken out a second mortgage on their house and never made payments on it, leaving the family subject to an almost-certain

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mort ...

. The children pray for their mother's miraculous victory in a contest sponsored by Dr Pepper. She wins, and pays the mortgage on the house. Years later, it is revealed that after Kelly died, Evelyn finds out that he has placed his pension checks in a bank account especially for her to make up all the failures he made as a husband and father. The actual Ryan children are then shown as adults.

Cast

as Evelyn Ryan *

as Leo "Kelly" Ryan *

as Dortha Schaefer * Trevor Morgan as Bruce *

Simon Reynolds Simon Reynolds (born 19 June 1963) is an English music journalist and author who began his professional career on the staff of ''Melody Maker'' in the mid-1980s. He has since gone on to freelance and publish a number of full-length books on musi ...

as Ray the Milkman *Monte Gagne as Lee Ann Ryan *

Jordan Todosey Jordan Todosey ( , born February 8, 1995) is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her role as Adam Torres, the first transgender character on the long-running TV series '' Degrassi: The Next Generation'', and as Lizzie McDonald on ''Life wit ...

as Young Tuff Ryan *Ellary Porterfield as Tuff Ryan

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews, garnering a 60% approval rating on film review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, with an average score of 6.10/10, based on 84 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Noteworthy for Julianne Moore's performance, ''Prize Winner'' is nonetheless a largely indistinct and tentative film that fails to convey the true power of its bittersweet tale."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

reported a score of 58/100 (citing "mixed or average reviews"), based on reviews from 28 critics.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the '' Chicago ...

'' gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, remarking that the movie "avoids obvious sentiment and predictable emotion, and shows this woman somehow holding it together year after year, entering goofy contests that, for her family, mean life and death".''The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio''
(movie review), ''Chicago Sun-Times'', September 30, 2005. Retrieved 2008-01-13.

Home media

The film was released on DVD on March 14, 2006, with DreamWorks taking distribution, instead of their independent banner,

Go Fish Pictures Go Fish Pictures was an American film production and distribution company and a division of DreamWorks SKG, The company was founded in 2000 in order to produce and release arthouse, independent and foreign films. The division was initially suc ...

, which had theatrical rights to this film.

References

External links

* *
Evelyn Ryan's Official siteThe ''Prize Winner of Defiance'' Web Site by Terry Ryan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prize Winner Of Defiance, Ohio, The 2005 films American biographical drama films 2005 biographical drama films DreamWorks Pictures films Films about domestic violence ImageMovers films Revolution Studios films Films directed by Jane Anderson Films with screenplays by Jane Anderson Films scored by John Frizzell (composer) 2005 drama films 2000s English-language films Films produced by Robert Zemeckis 2000s American films