In 1990, Winona Ryder would continue to fine-tune being typecast as the “outsider” and the “freak” in Jim Abrahams’ Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael. After directing a slew of over the top parodies (e.g. Airplane! and Top Secret!), Abrahams took on, shall we say, “meatier” comedies in the form of Ruthless People and Big Business (one will have to excuse the overly generic titles). But it was with Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael, written by Karen Leigh Hopkins (in her debut before going on to write the likes of Stepmom, Because I Said So and Miss Meadows), that Abrahams allowed the only moment of seriousness in his career.
Tinged with the same coming of age flavor as Mermaids, also released that year, in which she plays Charlotte Flax, this time Ryder lends even more impenetrability and chip on her shoulder flair to the character of Dinky Bossetti (because yes, apparently many directors find Ryder passable as a girl of “Italian descent,” though Mel Gibson seems to think otherwise with a question like, “You’re not an oven dodger, are you?”). Irascible, unpredictable and a prime candidate for being accused of listening to The Smiths (“I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside” seeming to be Dinky’s own personal philosophy as well), Dinky relates to absolutely no one in her small Ohio town, called Clyde. So small, in fact, it might even make Middleburg Heights look like a bustling metropolis. While Clyde might be fictional, we do know the town is located along Lake Erie (with some scenes shot in Sandusky for the full Ohio effect).
Clyde was certainly too small a town for Roxy Carmichael, as we see at the beginning of the movie in which we’re told with a title card that it’s about fifteen years earlier (so 1975). Roxy is packing her shit while a baby fusses inside of a dresser drawer as Denton Webb (soon to be played by Jeff Daniels) comes in and asks her where she’s going. “Places”–that’s where. And in order to get to them, it most definitely does not involve sticking around in “dinky” (pun intended) Clyde. Back in the present, Dinky, the real star of a story not eponymously named for her, feels just as much of the same “I’m too big for this town” sentiments (despite her cruel and ironic moniker). Maybe that’s why she suddenly gravitates to the myth of Roxy–all at once inescapable in Clyde as the town prepares for her arrival one week before the “Roxy Ball” (hence, calling the entire week “Roxy Carmichael Week”).
Perhaps themselves clinging to any modicum of greatness they can get their mediocre hands on, they seem perfectly content to gloss over the fact that Roxy’s “stardom” is middling, at best. Apparently, her sole claim to fame is being the inspiration for a song (à la Edie Sedgwick, but without the glamorous background and cachet of having been born a socialite). A rock star’s entire album, actually. And he was perfectly happy to talk about Roxy in all of his interviews when the record came out. Roxy, in turn, collected the royalties, subsequently fulfilling her dream of starting a beauty and cosmetology empire. It’s all both weirdly specific and totally far-fetched. But perhaps that’s what makes it credible.
We never once catch a glimpse of Roxy’s face–that is, of course, the visually manifested effect of her charm and allure… the “je ne sais quoi” that keeps men like Denton forever obsessed. Denton himself tells Dinky that her genius lies in her ability to intuit the perfect moment to walk out on a guy at an emotional peak of their relationship, leaving him constantly craving more. Perpetually pining. That she has distinct “trademarks” only adds to her indelibility in men’s minds. Most notably, her favorite flower being dandelions (because they’re wild, and don’t care where they live) and her favorite snack being almond roca (quite precise, therefore memorable indeed). Dinky falls prey to the same obsession as everyone else, seeing somehow a chance for salvation in Roxy, whom she grows increasingly convinced is her real mother.
After all, the timeline Denton unwittingly gives her for when Roxy walked out on him and their baby adds up, and, what’s more, Roxy’s purported love of animals aligns with Dinky’s–not to mention both were deemed “scary” to others for their own inherent fearlessness. Yes, the more Dinky ponders it while among her “Ark” of animals that she houses in a beat-up boat along the shore, the more she knows it must be true. Having a “famous” mother can be the only karmic recompense for the adopted mother she’s been given, Rochelle (Frances Fisher). Confessing to the new school guidance counselor, Elizabeth Zaks (Laila Robins), that she long ago, at six years old, sat Rochelle down to tell her that she hated dolls and all things pink, it seemed from that moment forward that both of them gave up on each other.
And now, it would appear, Dinky is seeking maternal validation in someone else, no matter how far-fetched the possibility that Roxy is her mother. And yet, even Roxy knew the value of “being feminine,” putting on the airs associated with “womanly charm.” Dinky, instead, is fiercely anti-hygiene and anti-“appealing.” It still doesn’t stop a popular boy named Gerald Howells (Thomas Wilson Brown) from noticing her. Yet because of her lowly “status,” constantly picked on and abused by the other kids at school, he must hide his feelings for her, even when the overpowering desire to help her when she’s being turned into cannon fodder for ridicule almost gets the best of him. Dinky, however, is not initially all that impressed by the prospect of being Gerald’s girlfriend, particularly after he tells her she would need to fix her appearance a bit if she wants to be with him… you know, so the other students won’t berate him, in turn, for being with her.
At first, Dinky’s sense of pride and honor leave Gerald in the dust. But it is her own guidance counselor who insists that if you want a relationship with anyone–friend or lover–the expectation is to at least slightly attempt to fit into a societal mold. That’s part of the “give and take” element of the unspoken “accord” between “functioning humans.” Alas, Dinky falls for the yarn, succumbing to compromising herself just a little bit more–in a way that even Roxy never did. Oh, if only Dinky really was Roxy’s daughter, then some of that sweet “family money” would have allowed her the freedom to be as “incorrigible” as she wanted forever.
