Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (1990)

Taglines: She doesn’t want much. Just a whole new life.

Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael movie storyline. Although Roxy left town more than fifteen years ago, her memory has never faded. Her expected return starts to impact a number of lives, including that of her former partner Denton Webb. But it is Dinky, the adopted daughter of the Bossettis and ignored by most of her classmates as a strange loner, who may be most changed. She is convinced she is Roxie’s secret child.

Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael is a 1990 American comedy-drama film directed by Jim Abrahams and starring Winona Ryder, Jeff Daniels, Laila Robins, Thomas Wilson Brown, Joan McMurtrey, Graham Beckel, Frances Fisher, Dinah Manoff, Sachi Parker, Stephen Tobolowsky and Micole Mercurio.

Film Review for Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael

Fans of Winona Ryder will definitely want to catch her in an offbeat role as the town rebel in this teen-oriented smalltown saga; unfortunately, the rest of the production doesn’t quite match up.

Winona Ryder plays 15-year-old Dinky Bossetti, a moody, glowering misfit who scribbles po- etry, wears baggy black clothes and doesn’t comb her hair. Her nowhereville hometown of Clyde, Ohio, is all in a dither about the impending return of legendary local Roxy Carmichael, and Dinky, being adopted, decides that Roxy must have been her real mother.

Also certain that Roxy is coming back for him is Jeff Daniels as Denton, formerly the teenaged boyfriend with whom she had a baby, now a married man with a family. As all gossip turns to Roxy and her precocious local deeds, Denton’s wife (Joan McMurtrey) gets fed up with the situation and leaves him.

Meanwhile the socially reviled Dinky is being pursued by a nerdy guidance counselor who wants to put her in a school for misfits, and a rather blank-slated surfer-looking dude (Thomas Wilson Brown) who wants to be her boyfriend.

Ryder’s performance has a subtle glow and maturity that mesmerizes. Her keenly observed creation of the spooky, androgynous Dinky, with her low voice and deadpan delivery, injects her scenes with a natural comedy far more satisfying than the more hysterical efforts being made around her.