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Starring: Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern, Frank Chiesurin, Trevor Morgan
Directed by: Jane Anderson
Screenplay by: Jane Anderson
Release Date: September 30, 2005
Running Time: 109 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic elements, some disturbing images and language.
Box Office: $626,310 (US total)
Studio: DreamWorks Pictures
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  The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio Production NotesEvelyn Ryan is a devoted housewife and mother of ten in the 1950s. Her husband can’t seem to make ends meet, but that doesn’t stop the car from breaking down, the mortgage coming due and the bills from piling up.
It falls to Evelyn to defy the conventions of the day and find a way to keep her family together with the odds stacked against them. Applying her remarkable resourcefulness and an uncommon wit, Evelyn finds her own way in the profitable jingle contests popular in the 1950s and ‘60s.
Four-time Academy Award nominee Julianne Moore (“Far From Heaven,” “The Hours,” “The End of the Affair,” “Boogie Nights”), Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson (“The People vs. Larry Flynt”) and Oscar nominee Laura Dern (“Rambling Rose”) star in “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio,” the true story of a woman who defied the odds to keep a roof over her family’s heads.
 “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio,” is based on the book of the same name about Evelyn Ryan (Julianne Moore), a devoted mother and housewife who used her self-described “knack for words” to keep her struggling family afloat. In the 1950s and ‘60s, housewives across the country used their wits to win thousands of dollars in cash and prizes in jingle contests staged by corporations to promote their products. But of all the “jingle-belles” vying for supremacy, none out-rhymed Evelyn Ryan, whose creative resources usually corresponded directly to her family’s needs -- and with ten kids and an alcoholic husband (Woody Harrelson), those needs were numerous and unending. Her husband can’t seem to make ends meet, but that doesn’t stop the car from breaking down, the mortgage coming due and the bills from piling up. Applying her remarkable ingenuity and an uncommon wit, Evelyn found the way to keep her family together, despite the enormous odds stacked against them.
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