How to Make an American Quilt

A young woman at a crossroads in her life finds herself receiving plenty of advice from her older and wiser counterparts in this drama. Finn Dodd (Winona Ryder) is a graduate student trying to finish up her doctoral thesis on women's folk art while deciding if she should marry her fiancé Sam (Dermot ...more

How to Make an American Quilt is a pleasing, sisters-through-the-generations tableau that, not surprisingly, weaves together stories like panels on the titular fabric. Perhaps too obvious in its metaphors and methods, the film executes them well enough to make it a fond celebration of womanhood. Although the variety of grand dames who take their place around the quilt (Maya Angelou, Ellen Burstyn, Anne Bancroft, Alfre Woodard) would seem to serve as mother figures to Winona Ryder's Finn Dodd, ...more