Review of Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (1990) by Sleep W — 12 Jan 2009

Rochelle: "Dinky Dean Bossetti, is that the yellow sweater I bought for you last week? That was a thirty-two dollar sweater, missy, and you dyed it black, didn't you? After you promised me you wouldn't.

Dinky: Correction. I didn't promise I wouldn't. I said I'd try not to.".

The city of Clyde, Ohio's biggest success story, Roxy Carmichael, is planning to return home for a visit after a 15-year absence. To celebrate, the residents of Clyde are gearing up for a huge welcoming celebration. But Roxy's arrival begins to have an unexpected impact on everyone, including her ex-lover Denton (Jeff Daniels), who may not have ever moved on, and the town's resident teenage oddball, Dinky Bossetti (Winona Ryder), who refuses to bathe and only gets along with animals. As Roxy's visit draws nearer, secrets are revealed and relationships are both formed and destroyed in the name of a mythologized bad-girl-made-good. It offer a portrait of the large role celebrities play in the minds of individuals who oftentimes view their own lives as diminished, constricted, and devoid of significance. Ryder has a talent for these haunted adolescents. She has a real darkness in her, which she translates easily into comedy, and in some of her scenes here, she's touchingly funny and even, on occasion, moving. This angsty coming of age comedy-drama is her defence. The two relationships that do work are between Dinky and her boyfriend, and between Dinky and the guidance counselor (Laila Robins), who sees through her facade and really cares for her. Daniels for once isn't playing the sidekick or the goofball, but he's getting some real emotional meat to sink his teeth into. The stuff about the small town comes off as hackneyed, and the whole love affair with Roxy Carmichael never comes together. It takes us half the movie to get an explanation of why she's so famous, and when it arrives, the audience is with Dinky in not believing it's that big of a deal.