During the course of the movie, Moore enters contests big and small, and wins such prizes as a toaster, a deep freezer, bicycles, vacations, and even a pony. The cash flow from her prizes allows her to get the best of the milkman, whose necessary weekly visits imperil her limited budget.
Moore's gift of prose should command a lofty Madison Avenue salary, but instead she is a selfless mother cursed to live out her days with a Jekyll and Hyde husband. Harrelson means well, at least most of the time, but is stressed out by his tedious, dead-end job and the burden of supporting his large family. His bitterness constantly rises to the surface to do battle with Moore's cheerful pluck. Moore wins most of the time, because it's her movie, and because Harrelson is outnumbered eleven to one. The kids all side with their mother.
Laura Dern is third-billed, but she has only a small supporting role as a fellow contest participant.
How others will see it. This unpublicized and unheralded movie promptly disappeared into the black hole of obscurity. The best hope for the film was Moore's plum role, which had Oscar nomination potential. She was passed over for the likes of Keira Knightley, whom I am sure was stunning (to look at, that is) in the current decade's Hollywood adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is about a woman, is directed by a woman, has a screenplay written by a woman, and is based on a biography written by a woman. The target audience is adult women, particularly those old enough to identify with the bygone era of Betty Crocker and black and white television. Thus, I expected the user ratings imdb.com to grade higher with adult women than men, and that is indeed the case, 7.5 versus 7.1.
Men are instinctively likely to suspect that Moore's mother-of-the-year character is too good to be true. They are also prone to sympathize with Harrelson, not that they condone his sometimes abusive behavior. Harrelson is unloved, and although I have never held a factory job, it has to be quite a grind to make it through each day. Moore, meanwhile, gets to bask in the constant adoration of her progeny, who (for the most part) display ideal behavior, even if they won't try caviar.
How I felt about it. I've already noted that the interpretation of the characters of Moore and Harrelson are influenced by gender. Less interesting and more problematic are the children. In a family with ten kids, it is inevitable that the oldest children will help the mother care for the youngest. But this is a story about the mother, and not the kids. Therefore, the kids, whether toddlers or teenagers, depend primarily upon their mother, and not each other. Their inter-relationships are undeveloped, and on the rare occasions when they exchange dialogue, it is to demonstrate that they prefer mother to their anti-social dad, such as one child's version of "Row, Row Your Boat:"
Row, row, row your boat, gently up the stream;
Throw daddy overboard, listen to him scream.