Because of Winn Dixie
© James C. Hess
Because I have been involved in a writing competition that has proven successful beyond my wildest expectations and desires, because this competition has discovered so many legitimate writing talents, and because it has become a fountainhead of writing talent, recent conversations involving the rather morbid and depressing subject of mortality brought forth a curious but well-intended suggestion: My epitaph, which should read:
Tell Me A Story.
I believe, and have believed for some time, that the basis of good entertainment that endures, be it a short story, a novel, or a film or movie, is a story. A good story. A good story told well. That's all there is to it: Tell me a story.
If you don't know how to tell a story, learn.
How do you learn to tell a story? You just do it. After all, practice makes perfect.
Proof of all of this is the movie "Because of Winn-Dixie", the story of a lonely girl with a disconnected father, who finds herself adopted by a dog she comes to call 'Winn-Dixie'. The dog in question changes her life for the better, helps her to make life-long friends, and provides her someone she actually confide in for the first time in her life.
If this premise rings familiar, it should. It is very likely you have seen another film with the same premise entitled "My Dog Skip", which many assert is a far superior effort.
Perhaps. But "Because of Winn-Dixie" is different in that it knows the audience it wants to appeal to, and does so effortlessly: The middle school crowd and below. Adults allowed to be seen here but they are kept at a distance, and are portrayed as eccentric. In other words, not the sort of person a young girl wants in her life, especially when an odd-duck dog will do.
The young girl in question is named Opal (Anna Sophia Robb). She is ten years old, and lives in a trailer supplied rent-free to her father, who preaches in a church that is housed in a convenience store. Opal's mother left them when Opal was three, without explanation. Her father, in the wake of this event, spends much of his time in depression, looking out a window, and working on a sermon he apparently has yet to complete.
One day Opal's father sends her to the local Winn-Dixie supermarket. While she is there a dog runs up and down the aisles, which is chased by clerks in the store, out to protect the inventory. The dog skids into a display of cans, knocks over a pyramid of boxes, destroys the peace and quiet otherwise found there, and causes general chaos.
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