The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2005) is Jane Anderson's drama you can watch online on iFILM. Evelyn Ryan keeps ten kids fed in 1950s small-town Ohio while her husband drinks away the wages and the bank inches closer to taking the house.

Her gift is an odd one: she writes jingles and ad slogans, mailing them off to the contests that consumer brands ran back then, and the prizes — appliances, cash, a trip — are what keep the family afloat. Julianne Moore plays Evelyn with steel instead of self-pity, opposite Woody Harrelson as her alcoholic husband and Laura Dern as a fellow contester. It comes from the memoir written by Evelyn's daughter Terry Ryan, so all of it really happened, right down to a mother raising ten children twenty-five words at a time. A quiet film about endurance that never lectures you. Stream The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2005) online on iFILM.