Review of The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2005) by Molly C — 05 Jan 2007

A long time ago, I saw an Annette Funicello movie that I'm pretty sure was made for the Disney Channel about a woman who won a lot of contests--though, of course, hers were all based on luck, since the contests that Eveyln Ryan won based on skill have faded away. The thing both movies have in common--other than an obligatory feel-good ending--is husbands who feel threatened by their wives' wins.

Maybe I've been lucky. I don't know. I'm a bit of an overshadowing personality, as I'm sure you can imagine, and I don't think most of my boyfriends have minded. Then again, if they did, they didn't say. And gods know Graham would be thrilled if I started winning fabulous prizes. That would be stuff for me that he didn't have to pay for.

It makes more sense in Evelyn Ryan's case, however. Good ol' Annette was just lucky. In the real-life version, this was a genuine talent. It wasn't as though she got lucky on the lottery. She was really, truly talented, and her husband was a machinist. (He's supposed to have been a talented singer, but as we're stuck with Woody Harrelson, we don't get that. He's also supposed to have lost his voice, which would also make things difficult for him.) That's a different, and I think harder, kind of overshadowing.

Frankly, I think the Kelly Ryan we're presented with in this movie should thank his lucky stars she puts up with him at all, much less spends her hard-won money on supporting him--though she'd probably end up taking care of the kids either way. He's a drunk, and a mean drunk, like my uncle Paul. He drinks up the money. Gods alone know where the money from the second mortgage went; certainly their standard of living didn't seem to go up enough to have meant the money was being spent on them. He locked the kids out of the house because his wife was gone across state lines for a one-day planned trip, and he was afraid she was leaving him for good.

They both, I suppose, must share the blame for the fact that they [i]have[/i] so damn many kids--well, and the Pope, too; they're supposed to be Catholic. (There's even a rosary shown at one point.) The priest at the beginning, the one who basically says it's all Evelyn's job to make the marriage a happy one, isn't much help, either. But that was society's view, too, and I think--if this story is at all accurate to the real family--that Evelyn Ryan was a hell of a woman who deserved a better husband than she had, and I hope the kids were worth it.