Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael

Local bad girl Roxy (Fabian) left her small-town Ohio home in search of fame and fortune. Fifteen years later, as the burghers of Clyde prepare to pay awestruck homage to her homecoming, adopted teen misfit Dinky (Ryder) is also obsessed with the living legend, for her own neurotic reasons. From a script by Karen Leigh Hopkins, Abrahams has concocted an initially intriguing mishmash: part high school angst opera, part suburban schlocker (Daniels, always dependable as the dentist-next-door type, is surpassingly dull here), part 'search for origins' family romance. There are a few piquant ironies at work, but the selling point is Ryder, again doing her coming-of-age turn for the camera, with a performance that wavers between gangling fragility and a tough-girl Matt Dillonism. Otherwise, the movie falls flat, because of its leaden pacing, and because deep down it believes in the moral imperative of having perfect hair and teeth.