Second Hand Wedding

I am a judge for the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival. This feature film is a Crystal Heart Award Winner and is eligible to be the Grand Prize Winner in October of 2008. The Heartland Film Festival is a non-profit that honors Truly Moving Pictures. A Truly Moving Picture "…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life."

Jill Rose is both at the same time a middle-age wonderful mother and wife and an awkward embarrassment. The latter is due to her penchant for continuously going to garage sales and second hand shops looking for bargains and then bringing them home and never giving them up. The house is filled with these bargains that her husband tolerates and her daughter Cheryl abhors.

Cheryl becomes engaged and is so afraid that her mother will take over and arrange a used or bargain or second hand wedding that she can't bring herself to tell her the good news. Unfortunately, everyone else knows including Cheryl's father. Jill finds out from an unfriendly co-worker and the mother and daughter and husband become estranged.

In all other aspects of her life, Jill is normal and useful. She is the Assistant Superintendent of her local New Zeeland school and is respected and has lots of friends. And her obsessive collecting and bargain hunting is funny. She can laugh at herself and at her hobby and can make others laugh along with her.

This is a story of how a faithful and loving and tolerant family handles an important situation in their lives. Their core values are more important than their quirks and peculiarities.

This appears to be a low budget film, but it looks good on the screen with the beautiful New Zeeland coastline as a backdrop. And the actors, while unfamiliar to me, uniformly were believable from the main actors to the townspeople actors.

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.