SnoopyStyle 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.

tex-42 How to Make an American Quilt is a movie filled with excellent actors, and a so so storyline. Finn Dodd is spending the summer with her grandmother, great aunt and their quilting bee supposedly to finish her master's thesis, but in reality to think things over after her boyfriend proposes.Once she arrives she finds the quilting bee is making her a quilt based on their own experiences with love. We then go through the ritual flashbacks to learn that most of these women dealt with some kind of love related trauma in their pasts. Finn is also tempted by the local hunk and his abs before she ultimately decides whether she intends to get married to the boyfriend she left back in Berkeley.Burstyn, Bancroft, Angelou and Nelligan all do a splendid job, and Alfre Woodard deserves special notice simply because her flashback is the one variance in the movie and she does a lot with a small part. Ryder is very appealing as well. The weakness of the movie is Ryder's men. Both are very underdeveloped. Mulroney is just bland, while Schaech's character is completely defined by his well sculptured body. It is never clear why Finn makes the choice she does, and this is the ultimate weakness of the movie, along with the fairly predictable flashbacks showing the various ways these women have been wronged by men. However, the quilts shown throughout the film are just beautiful.

Brian Wright The delight of the movie lies in the several stories, including the focal story of Finn herself. And what I'm struck by is how the quilt is a perfect metaphor for human life as it makes its way through the generations, particularly how women serve as the thread and fabric of life. First, think of the arts involving sewing or threading —which you can look at as "connecting"—and how they're almost universally performed by women. (You can tell me the human genome has nothing to say about gender behavior, and you can also tell me pigs can fly.)...For my complete review of this movie and for other movie and book reviews, please visit my site TheCoffeeCoaster.com.Brian Wright Copyright 2008

Jennifer Litchfield 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.