Word: bedelia
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...film, which spans almost three decades, traces Shirley's life from a teenage drag racer to a world champion car driver Shirley (Bonnie Bedelia) grows up in Schenectady, N.Y. developing a passion for racing cars early in her life. The film opens beautifully, in black and white as Shirley climbs into the lap of her father (Hoyt Axton) and steers the family car through the windy roads of upstate New York Shirley marries her high school beau Jack (Leo Rossi) and starts racing cars to earn extra money. Soon the family is spending weekends driving to races with...
...While Bedelia, as Shirley, gives an admirable performance, the lines do not give her a chance to express the complete range of her character. She is stifled by Friedman's stiff unemotional dialogue. Unlike Rocky, with whom the audience seemed to sweat and also cheer. Shirley is a cold, almost superhuman character who seems to know exactly what she wants and how to get there. We watch her plow her way through personal conflicts, the male dominated world of the race track, with a hard-nosed determination that asks for no compassion. Shirley always wins her races, and we always...
Heart Like a Wheel. This B-movie biography of Shirley Muldowney, first woman to become a national hot-rod champion, boasts crisp, compassionate direction by Jonathan Kaplan and an Oscar-worthy performance from Bonnie Bedelia...
...daunting role of Shirley-aging easily from 17 to 42 in 113 minutes of screen time, awakening slowly to the challenge of her own expertise, proving herself one of the boys while still very much Daddy's little girl-Bonnie Bedelia is quietly spectacular. Her soft eyes, tiny voice and sneaky shy smile have previously cast her as the noble loser; here she shows that those emblems of vulnerability can hide reserves of humor and resilience. This is a wonderfully American kind of acting: technically resourceful, but unforced and radiant. Heart Like a Wheel is a pretty darn good...
...haddock and the doctor can't read his own eye chart. The star pupil, whom the newest teacher, Leon Tulchinsky must cure, just learned to sit down a few days ago. Sophia is 18 years old. This would be just another pointless Simon situation commedy--a collection of Amelia Bedelia jokes, as one viewer put it--if it weren't for the necessity of affirmative action...