Colcha de Retalhos

Bride-to-be Finn Dodd (Winona Ryder) hears tales of romance and sorrow from her elders as they construct a quilt.

Is this a chick flick or something more? I think it is primarily a chick flick, as it tells multiple romance stories from the point of view of the ladies. But it is not a romantic comedy, which makes it deeper than the average chick flick. And the cast... wow. Winona Ryder, Maya Angelou, Claire Danes and the debut of Jared Leto? That has to make it worth something.

And actually, it was the cast that really made this enjoyable for me. I cared very little about the plot, and definitely did not care about the romances. Finn could be with her boyfriend, a foreign guy or whoever. I don't care who she picks. But the casting was excellent.

I have watched parts of this movie more than once. The movie from start to finish only once. Each story unfolds like a facet on the quilt. Then as the main plot line draws to a conclusion, the thread that binds these stories together resolves each individual facet, to complete the whole.

Quilting as I understand it, is bringing many contributions together to create a final product. Each little design tells a story and the master quilter put's these stories together , to convey a theme or message.

I have not read the novel, but the movie conveys the message in it's title.

The soundtrack is tranquil and adds to the mood.

The interplay between Burstyn and Bancroft is a pleasure to watch. Winona is excellent.

I have spent many pleasant hours mocking "How To Make An American Quilt" to friends, but at this moment I want to play fair. I'm sure that there are many things to like about this movie and that somehow they escaped my notice. For me it was never more than a series of plot devices stitched together (ha ha) to form an unsatisfying story.

Winona Ryder is always a pleasure to watch. I've liked her better in more irreverent titles like "Beetlejuice" or "Heathers". Still, she wears earnestness well, and manages to make bearable the Poloniusesque quilt speech at end of the picture (see the quotes section).

The supporting players should be every bit as watchable (with several centuries of acting experience among them, they ought to be). I wish I'd been allowed to watch them act. Their function was to sit in front of the camera quilting and say a few words of introduction before the flashback--as if they were hosts of a documentary.

I want to pause for a moment over Maya Angelou's casting. It's always a tricky thing introducing a famous person from another discipline as an actor. I call it the "Hey, you're Kareem Abdul-Jabbar" problem (based on the scene from _Airplane_ where a kid recognizes the basketball player in the co-pilot's seat. The joke is in how much time he spends denying it). Maya Angelou has screen presence, but does nothing to dispel the problem. My dominant experience watching her was, "Wow, they got Maya Angelou, world famous poet!" Maybe this was the idea. Maybe the filmmakers felt her famous presence would, in itself, add depth to the proceedings, so why muddy it with anything as messy as an interesting character? Her appearance was less acting than promotion. Maya Angelou wouldn't appear in a dog, would she?

Well...

The plot reminds me of a line Robin Williams had about alcoholics, "You realize you're and alcoholic when you repeat yourself. You realize you're an alcoholic when you repeat yourself. You realize, oh dammit." Each woman's story follows a similar pattern. Girl meets boy, sleeps with boy, marries boy, boy leaves, boy comes back--each time unconvincingly (I wonder how far any guy has ever gotten with the opening line "You swim like a mermaid"). The Alfre Woodard story is the only variation, and as a result, the only interesting one among them.

And of course Winona Ryder's Finn has a similar problem. Does she marry Dermott Mulrooney or does she go off with the local stud muffin. I call him the local stud muffin because that's all he is. The actor who played him didn't convince me that there was anything under the perfect I-don't-have-to-work-out abs that would compel her to do more than roll in the field with him. He wasn't a character so much a plot device meant to set up an obvious choice. Handsome rogue or dependable architecht? Given the way the flashbacks ran, take a guess.

There are more scenes to pummel here. There's the thesis blowing away in the wind (she's the only grad student I've ever seen with no notes, no paperweight, and, since she was using a typewriter, no carbons), and there's her random meeting with the Stud Muffin (who just happened to be hanging out in the groves with a picnic basket and a blanket for her. I guess this was set before the advent of stalking laws), but it would take too long to mock them all. The real trouble with the movie is that it was so earnest, so desperate to convince the audience of its poetic depths, that it wound up shallow, unsatisfying, unconvincing and unintentionally funny.

Or, to put it another way--never have so many, who were so talented, worked on something so ordinary.

This movie tells about men and women, and ties that bind them (us, I mean).

I haven't read the novel, and I'm the kind of person who believes that the movie is not to be compared with any novel who based it, because they're using different media. So the way I see it, it's a good movie. We can easily understand it's messages and sympathy with the characters.

Winona, by the way, appears to be a sweet girl who's having trouble following her 'advisors' ideas and wisdom. On the screen, she appears to be having quite difficulty matching these women's acts. We see her the way she is in 'Edward Scissorhand', or 'Reality Bites', or her other movies. Maybe because she's so sweet and pretty, and I was carried away with her big eyes. So I see her in this movie very usual and not special.

The movie itself is beautiful and sweet. The casts are nice. We ended up wondering about our relationships and ourselves.

A must see. Watch it with your close friends, spouse, or parents.

Love, development and maturity all form the embroidery for this "more than a Hollywood drama piece" quilt, with stitching that matches the craftily, skilfully and fruitfully detailed needlework. From the needle of a great, star-laden ensemble, the patterns have been carefully but imaginatively sown into the wool - from a powerful exploration of human relationships to the torture of love, the journeys of women and the revelations of grief and new beginnings - there are many materials and colours used to form this quilt, and there is something that will appeal to everyone. Just like an American quilt, you too seem to become apart of the amazing, cathartic story lines, which weave together to make this cinematic masterpiece. It is evident that the embroiderer clearly knows how to make an American Quilt!