Also known as: Roxy (Sweden, France)
Release Date: October 12th, 1990
Directed by: Jim Abrahams
Written by: Karen Leigh Hopkins
Music by: Melissa Etheridge, Thomas Newman
Cast: Winona Ryder, Jeff Daniels, Laila Robins, Dinah Manoff, Thomas Wilson Brown, Frances Fisher, Graham Beckel, Stephen Tobolowsky, Carla Gugino, Beth Grant
Incorporated Television Company, Paramount Pictures, 95 Minutes
Review:
“Starting tomorrow there will be hourly tours of Roxy Carmichael’s birthplace. You’ll see where Roxy slept and where she ate during her wonder years. You’ll also see pictures of her beloved dog, Bonkers.” – Louise, “She loved that dog. She used to ride it. It was a big dog.” – Town Person
I remember seeing the VHS box for this at the video store, constantly. However, I never knew anything about the film and therefore, never rented it. Since I came across it streaming on HBO, I figured I could kill an hour and a half and check it out. Besides, I typically enjoy old school Winona Ryder.
Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael is a film with a lot of problems but none of them are really that bad. Also, none of these problems come from Winona Ryder, who is front and center in most of the movie’s scenes.
The film showcases how great of an actress Ryder is, even though she’s surrounded by a movie that really seems to miss its mark in nearly every other regard. For fans of Ryder, this is definitely worth watching just to see her performance, as an awkward kid that can’t seem to find her place in the world. And while that’s hardly an original concept, Ryder does wonders with the weak and derivative material. You can’t help not liking her and actually caring about her journey through this story and that’s most certainly due to her skill and not the humdrum script.
This feels like a picture that should have been better and needed to be but it’s far from terrible and I wouldn’t call it forgettable. We’ve just all seen this story a dozen times over. But at least the plot was fairly interesting in that revolves around a small town preparing for the return of a local girl that grew into a massive music star. In the case of Winona Ryder’s Dinky, she believes that this celebrity is her biological mother.
Adding more layers to the plot, we’re given Jeff Daniels’ character, who was the former lover of the star and the father of the baby she left behind when she bolted from town to live out her rock star dreams.
Additionally, we get to see the lives of other townsfolk and how this star’s return effects them on their own personal levels.
There’s a bit of a twist to the ending but it’s nothing shocking and frankly, it’s fairly predictable.
In the end, we’re left with a pretty mediocre movie that was lucky enough to get a great performance out of its lead.
Rating: 6/10
Pairs well with: other coming of age teen movies from the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Talking Pulp 