Because of Winn-Dixie

Director: Wayne Wang Wayne Wang

Overview

It's not finishing school or a traditional upbringing that causes ten-year-old Opal to learn about the world outside of her own backyard, but rather a particularly awkward-looking mutt named Winn-Dixie. Based on a novel by Kate DiCamillo, Winn-Dixie and Opal not only become privy to the eventful, if eccentric, lives of their neighbors (including a librarian who fought off a bear with nothing but a novel, a blind woman who claims to "see" with her heart, and a sensitive ex-con turned pet store clerk), but Opal herself manages to reconcile some of the depression left over after her mother had abandoned the family seven years earlier.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/09/2005
UPC:	0024543189718
Original Release:	2005
Rating:	PG
Source:	20Th Century Fox
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Letterbox, Full Frame]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, Dolby Digital Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:46:00
Sales rank:	11,984

Special Features

Closed Caption;Full-length audio commentary by Jeff Daniels and producer Trevor Albert; Scene-Specific audio commentary by AnnaSophia Robb; Gag reel; Behind-the-scenes featurette; "Diamond in the Ruff" Dog Training featurette

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

AnnaSophia Robb	Opal
Jeff Daniels	Preacher
Cicely Tyson	Gloria
Dave Matthews	Otis
Eva Marie Saint	Miss Franny
Courtney Jines	Amanda Wilkinson
Nick Price	Dunlap Dewberry,Mrs. Dewberry
Luke Benward	Stevie Dewberry
Elle Fanning	Sweetie Pie Thomas
B.J. Hopper	Mr. Alfred
Lenore Banks	Mrs. Detweller
John "Spud" McConnell	Store Manager
Harland Williams	Policeman
William Pitts	Churchgoer 1
Enid Trotiner	Churchgoer 2
Charles A. Daigle	Churchgoer 3
Clarice H. Gauthreaux	Churchgoer 4
Guy G. Gauthreaux	Churchgoer 5
Julia LaShae	SPCA Officer
Darrell Jupiter	SPCA Officer
Lara Grice	Opal's Mom
Becca Lish	Gertrude the Parrot (Voice)
David Snell	Conductor
Rachel Portman	Composer

Technical Credits

Joan Singleton

Joan V. Singleton

Wayne Wang	Director
Joan Singleton	Screenwriter,Producer,Executive Producer,Screenwriter
Trevor Albert	Producer
Lisa Fincannon	Casting
Mike Mukatis	Stunts
Joan V. Singleton	Producer,Screenwriter
Loren Corl	Key Grip
Rick Landry	Casting
Ray Abbott	Stunts
Todd Thaler	Casting
Steve Aaron	Sound Mixer,Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

There’s a ready audience for Because of Winn-Dixie, specifically because of Kate DiCamillo’s Newberry Award-winning coming-of-age novel, on which it’s based. And director Wayne Wang, whose resume includes the adaptation of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, mostly succeeds in mining the books humane and quirky charms, aside from a few heavy-handed departures into slapstick. Ten year-old Opal (the adorable AnnaSophia Robb) is struggling to adjust to her new home in a small Florida town. Her distant father (Jeff Daniels), a preacher, conducts his services in a convenience store. Opal hasn’t made any friends. And she still laments her absent mother, who abandoned the family when she was a baby and about whom her father refuses to talk. Her luck changes when she encounters a scruffy mutt at the local Winn-Dixie grocery and adopts him, naming him for the store. And so, as Opal narrates, she meets and befriends a gallery of colorful local characters, all because of Winn-Dixie. These include: Miss Franny (Eva Marie Saint), a librarian who tells fanciful stories about a bear she fought off with a copy of War and Peace; Gloria (Cicely Tyson), a blind woman thought by the town's kids to be a witch; and the guitar-strumming pet-store caretaker Otis (Dave Matthews), who shares a dark secret from his past through song. As in the book, Because of Winn-Dixie makes references to the town’s defunct Litmus Lozenge Co., where each sweet drop contained a measure of “sorrow.” This metaphoric conceit worked better on the page, yet this Winn-Dixie still has complex charms all its own.