Grade: C+

Verdict: A cornpone comedy-drama about a single mother, made with enough polish to be a guilty pleasure.

Details: Starring Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd. Rated PG-13 for intense thematic material, language and sexual content. 2 hours.

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Review: You won't find a David or a Susan in "Where the Heart Is."

No, this is one of those country-cute movies where folks are full of gumption and have names like Moses, Lexie, Sister Husband, Forney and Novalee Nation.

The latter, a pregnant 17-year-old played by Natalie Portman, is the latest addition to a popular Hollywood stereotype: the low-rent single mother having to make it on her own (think of "Tumbleweeds," "Erin Brockovich," "Anywhere But Here" and "Crazy in Alabama"). You could call "Heart" the latest in a new genre: cracker chic.

But dagnabbit if the ding-dang thing doesn't work half the gosh-darn time.

En route to California, the destination of choice for these movie moms, Novalee gets dumped by her no-'count boyfriend, Willy Jack (Dylan Bruno), at an Oklahoma Wal-Mart, where she secretly lives until the baby's birth turns her into a local star: the Wal-Mart Mom. (For the record, she decides to call her daughter Americus instead of her first choice, Windy.)

Embraced by the townsfolk, Novalee bonds with recovering alcoholic Sister Husband (the wry Stockard Channing, batting most of her comic lines out of the ballpark) and Lexie (Ashley Judd), another single mother whose many children are named Brownie, Baby Ruth and--oh, never mind, you get the drift.

In episodic fashion, Novalee deals with religious fanatics, a kidnapping, a friend's assault, a killer tornado and the attentions of one of those smart, shy, sexy guys who exist only in chick flicks like this. Here, he's Forney (James Frain), a librarian.

Based on the Billie Letts novel, "Heart" keeps its menfolk stuck in two dimensions. I guess that's only fair turnaround, since most actresses in studio films get stuck playing the Wife or Girlfriend. In case we miss the movie's girl-power message, "Heart" includes a needless plot line that follows Willy Jack's attempts at a singing career and goes to gruesome lengths to show us his comeuppance.

Portman can't make you believe that she "never lived anyplace that didn't have wheels under it," but she's always fresh and intelligent. She brings a graceful stillness to many of her scenes, making us believe in Novalee's transformation from baby-voiced teen to self-assured woman.

In a supporting role, Judd doesn't have to carry a movie for the first time in a while. She's the better for it, relaxed, funny and free of the grim calculation she brought to "Kiss the Girls" and "Double Jeopardy."

And you have to appreciate a movie that at least gives work to pros like Channing and Sally Field, in a cameo as Novalee's peroxide-headed, aging party-hearty mother.

Peppered with zinger lines by screenwriting team Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel ("City Slickers"), "Where the Heart Is" has enough humor and polish to gull you into enjoying it's jest-folks fakery. But you may hate yourself in the morning.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service