How to Make an American Quilt (1995)

I found this movie on Netflix streaming movies. I had avoided it all these years because just based on the title I didn't think I would enjoy it. Now I know that was an incorrect judgment. It really is an exceptional story and the movie treats it very well.The main character is played by Winona Ryder who unfortunately is often known mainly for her shoplifting conviction, but she is a good actress. She plays Finn, 26 and working on her Master's thesis. It seems she has changed topics more than once which is used as an illustration of some difficulties she is having making commitments.She is engaged to be married, her fiancé is played in an understated manner by Dermot Mulroney as Sam. He drops her off at her grandma's place north of Los Angeles, a house at the edge of a large citrus grove. She plans to spend the summer there working on her thesis and he will pick her up at the end of the summer. But she wonders if marrying Sam is really what she wants to do, and meeting an attractive young man complicates her decisions.The title arises from the comparison of a group of ladies, a "quilting bee", making a quilt. Certain choices must be made, the overall intent of the quilt must not be forgotten, but in the end choices must be made and chances must be taken. Outcomes can't always be accurately predicted.So it is in life. The ladies are making the quilt for Finn but at the same time she is uncertain about her choices. As the movie moves along each of the older women shares her tales, of loves gained and loves lost, of compromises they might have made, all having an impact on Finn and helping her sort out her own feelings, goals, and desires.

Finn Dodd (Winona Ryder) is soon to marry Sam (Dermot Mulroney). Only she has doubts. She has trouble finishing a thesis for her master's degree. She has doubts about everything. She asks "If you have to choose between marry a lover or marry a friend. Who would you choose?"The movie takes many flashbacks as it tells the stories of the various women's heart breaking pasts. It's a disjointed form of storytelling. I guess that's the quilt of stories being stitched together. It really disrupts the flow of the main Finn story. The relationship between all the characters in all the timelines can get quite confusing. The whole thing is a jigsaw puzzle of rambling stories. Quilts are patch works, but I would like a story to have better flow.Finn is a mess of neuroses. It's not a pretty character. All the doubts and all the confusion make it hard to root for her. At the end of the day, she has to decide and deal with the consequences. The pontificating on the matter just isn't that compelling. It's the dealing that makes for compelling movie watching. I spend most of the movie wishing Finn would move the story along quicker instead of talking about essentially the same thing over and over again. And quite frankly, I don't know how following a bird is anything more than Hollywood hokum.

Near the beginning of the movie, Finn (played by Winona Ryder) offers this rather drab and depressing observation: "love sometimes dies." Well, sure - and I suppose most of us have been present at its death at some point in our lives, but I don't know that I want to have to be in on the autopsy afterward. Personally, as obviously true as the above statement from Finn may be, I'll still take 1 Corinthians 13:8 - "love never fails." It sounds so much more hopeful! As for this movie, it was just a dismal portrayal of love, marriage - and men, who generally come across here as rather unlovable, adulterous and shallow twits.Much of the movie is told in flashbacks. Finn is a young college student writing a master's thesis who gets engaged and then promptly heads off to stay with her grandma and aunt and their friends for an entire summer while they make her wedding quilt. The movie revolves around the stories of the women's loves - and, for the most part, it ain't a happy story! They've all failed at love in one way or another (or, more usually, the men they loved failed them) and they end up getting poor Finn to the point of wanting to back out on her own wedding.From my perspective none of the performances here were particularly memorable (including Ryder's) and the characters not all that interesting or memorable. The movie ends with what appears to be some attempt at redemption, but you have to be able to stick with it long enough to get there, and then the redemption itself is a sort of qualified one as Finn ends her narration by essentially saying that she and her fiancé Sam might as well go through with this marriage thing because they have as much chance of succeeding as failing, and maybe their love will tip the scales ever so slightly on the "success" side of the scale. Isn't that heartwarming (or pathetic!) 2/10 (and I'm struggling to remember why I decided to go that high!)

How to Make an American Quilt is a nice comfortable movie, and unlike so many other films belonging to the 'coming of age' genre, it doesn't leave the viewer feeling emotionally drained. It is also unusual in that it attempts to breach the generation divide in its appeal; however its success in this respect is debatable. Finn is 26 and, hoping for some peace and quiet in which to complete her Master's thesis, she heads for her great-aunt's house in small-town Grasse, California. She also needs time to mull over a marriage proposal from her boyfriend. This is an entrance cue for a smoulderingly handsome strawberry farmer (in an unnecessary plot complication) to hinder Finn's contemplations. Great-aunt Glady-Joe lives with her sister, Hy, and their constant bickering is portrayed with sensitivity and humour by Anne Bancroft and Ellen Burstyn. The two sisters belong to a quilting group, who are in the process of creating Finn's wedding quilt - thematically titled 'where love resides'. This evokes something different for each of the women, all of whom - in artificially contrived tete-a-tetes - explain to Finn the story behind their contributions to the quilt. The viewer is transported to a time when these elderly women were young, and through them we (along with Finn) learn that times may change, but affairs of the heart will always be unpredictable. These dalliances in the past are refreshingly piquant; unfortunately this is countered by the film's occasional heavy-handedness. The symbolic crow that leads the women to their true love has all the subtlety of a flashing neon sign. Ultimately however, even if it does perhaps tie up the loose ends too thoroughly, the film will leave the viewer pleasantly satisfied.