CINEMA: Andrew Worsdale
HOW to Make an American Quilt is based on a graduate thesis project at the University of California, by Whitney Otto, which eventually made it to the New York Times bestseller list. An affecting, bittersweet drama, it is one of the best in the set of “women’s movies” — Moonlight and Valentino, Bed of Roses, Now and Then — currently playing on circuit.
Winona Ryder plays Finn, a Berkely graduate who spends the summer at the home of her grandmother (Ellen Burstyn), amid the orange groves of Grasse, California. Here she hopes to finish her thesis on the rituals of women’s handiwork in tribal cultures, and to ponder a marriage proposal from her sympathetic boyfriend, Sam (Dermot Mulroney).
Along the way, she spends time with the Grasse Quilting Bee, a group of women who comprise her extended family — the remarkable cast consisting of Anne Bancroft, Maya Angelou, Kate Nelligan, Jean Simmons (she’s always been stunning and she hasn’t lost it here), Lois Smith and Alfre Woodward. As they gather to make Finn’s wedding quilt, the women tell her of the love affairs and marriages that shaped their lives — stories of true love and betrayal that span from the 1860s to the present.
Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse (responsible for the remarkable Australian film Proof, about a blind photographer caught in a love triangle), the film is genuinely and unflinchingly romantic.
Exquisitely lensed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, the film overplays its beauty at times; nevertheless, at the end of the myriad emotional journeys, one is left feeling warm, radiant and very impressed at the gentle mutual trust which the actors and the crew bring to the story.