Mediocre 'Winn-Dixie' not much to howl about

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE (PG) Two-and-a-Half Stars (Fair-to-Good) A relaxed if somewhat bland family film about the positive effect a mutt has on the lives of the humans with whom it comes in contact. Foremost among them is a lonely 10-year-old girl. Jeff Daniels and AnnaSophia Robb co-star for director Wayne Wang. 20th Century Fox, 109 minutes.

That's what happens when Winn-Dixie comes into the lives of the oddball citizenry of Naomi, Fla. No, we're not talking about the supermarket chain. Winn-Dixie is a scruffy, but lovable mutt, so named because he's discovered running free and wrecking havoc in the aisles of just such a market.

The supermarket manager is about to call the dog pound when 10-year-old Opal tells a fib and says the dog is hers. Now she has to convince her father to let her keep it. Fortunately he does or "Because of Winn-Dixie" would be a very short movie.

Opal (newcomer AnnaSophia Robb) is a precocious young lady who has just moved to Naomi with her father (Jeff Daniels), a preacher who has opened a ragtag, storefront church. The single parent and child moved to escape the bad memories of Opal's mother, who abandoned them. Much of the film revolves around Opal's attempts to get her father to tell her more about her absent mother and why she left.

Opal is a sad and lonely girl who misses her former friends and has trouble finding new ones in Naomi. But then Winn-Dixie becomes a focal point for all sorts of strangers who run into the child and her pet. Opal soon has a bevy of new acquaintances, including the town librarian (Eva Marie Saint), a blind old woman (Cicely Tyson) who the town children mistakenly consider a witch; and an intensely shy drifter (singer-turned-actor Dave Matthews) who now works in the town pet store.

Unlike Lassie or Rin Tin Tin, Winn-Dixie performs no special heroics. But the animal does get Opal and her newfound friends to interact with good-natured compassion. And he's an infinitely patient mutt who'll put up with anything, from a bubble bath in a kid's swimming pool to a pet parrot that sits on the dog's head.

The lessons of "Because of Winn-Dixie" are basic and simple, and patience is one of them. "Because of Winn-Dixie" is based on a Newbery Prize-winning children's novel, and Wayne Wang's film stays loyal to that juvenile demographic. It's a true family film of the sort sought by parents who don't believe they make movies like they used to.

But as family films go, "Winn-Dixie" is only mildly successful. It's hampered a bit by a town full of cliched stereotypes — the spinster librarian, the maybe-she's-a-witch woman, and the drifter with a troubled past. There's not much dramatic tension; it strives to get by on its quirky charm and affectionate canine.

For most children and some parents, that may be enough. "Winn-Dixie" is good at licking. But just a little bite wouldn't have hurt.

Rated PG, with brief, mild profanity.