Where the Heart Is

Cast anyone but actress savant Natalie Portman as the pregnant, white trash teenager axis of Where the Heart Is, based on the novel by Billie Letts, and this warm-fuzzy soap opera built around predictable crises and Hallmark card moments would be pretty close to insufferable. Abandoned by her rat bastard boyfriend in a Wal Mart parking lot, 17-year-old Novalee Nation (Portman) lives a clandestine life in the store until her baby is born. Then for a pandering and meandering two hours her character is tested with soft-peddled episodes of melodrama (a kidnapping, a tornado), all resolved with little more than a nice big hug from the townspeople (Stockard Channing, Ashley Judd, Keith David) who have taken her in. This low-impact unwed motherhood epic never gets any deeper than a pebble skipping across a pond, but Portman is terrific. Optional. (R. Blackwelder)