Heart of Dixie

Heart of Dixie is a 1989 drama film adaptation of the 1976 novel Heartbreak Hotel by Anne Rivers Siddons and directed by Martin Davidson. The film stars Ally Sheedy, Virginia Madsen, Phoebe Cates, and Treat Williams.

Rita Kempley, staff writer at The Washington Post panned the film, writing, Ally Sheedy, Virginia Madsen and Phoebe Cates combine their negligible talents in Heart of Dixie a melodrama so full of hams, it oinks. Led by Sheedy, the tedious trio plays giddy coeds caught up in the racist and sexist traditions of the South in the late 50s. They all sound like theyve been gulping hush puppy batter...Working from McCowns histrionic screenplay, Martin Davidson of Eddie and the Cruisers proves once again that he dont know nothing bout directing no movies.Contrasting this opinion, notable film critic Vincent Canby of the The New York Times wrote Heart of Dixie is a cleareyed, funny and affecting movie about the emotional awakening of a pretty, white Alabama coed in 1957, on the eve of the great racial struggles that would mark the 1960s throughout the South...Mr. McCowns screenplay, based on the novel Heartbreak Hotel, by Anne Rivers Siddons, is refreshing in the way that it refuses to impose a long historical view on the immediate events it is recording. The movie is always aware of history, but it somehow avoids the awful selfassurance that comes with 2020 hindsight...Miss Sheedy is so good as Maggie that the characters liberation, and the rise of her social consciousness, appear to be genuine triumphs. Miss Madsen, who looks a little like Carole Landis as well as like Kim Novak, is also fine, as are Mr. Williams, Phoebe Cates as Maggies unconventional friend and Don Michael Paul, who manages to play Maggies Southern chauvinist fiance with a good deal of arrogant charm. ........

Source: Wikipedia