Dinky (Winona Ryder) is a teenaged outcast living in a small Ohio town. When celebrity Roxy Carmicheal is scheduled to return for a dedication Dinky believes it’s her chance to get away. Dinky, an orphan, mistakenly believes that Roxy Carmicheal is her real mother and that her return will give DInky’s life meaning.
Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (1990) was directed by Jim Abrahams and written by Karen Leigh Hopkins. While Ryder is the de facto star of the film, the scope of the movie is much broader and charts many of the townspeople’s reactions to Carmichael’s return. The issue with this is that many of the side plots are either predictable or underdeveloped, particularly where it concerns Jeff Daniels.
But the film works whenever Ryder is on screen. She carries the movie with a wonderfully quirky performance. Even when the ending and various plot twists are predictable she remains captivating as the eccentric loner. Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael is a testament to Winona Ryder’s talents as an actor, especially given her age at the time.
The greatest weakness of the film isn’t its misshapen script or poor pacing, but the lack of a visual style. With a house all done in pink and a pitch black bedroom one would expect a more versatile visual palette. But Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael is shot in bland pastels with flat, unforgiving lights. The movie looks as if it were made for television.
Since its release Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael has drifted into obscurity. Only the most committed fans of Winona Ryder have kept the film alive. But that is as it should be. As a film Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael has little to recommend it.
