<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed . Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise . (September 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed . Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise . (September 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> Novalee Nation (Natalie Portman) is seventeen years old and seven months pregnant . She sets off on a road trip from Tennessee to California with her boyfriend, Willy Jack Pickens (Dylan Bruno) in an old, broken down 1963 Plymouth . When driving through Sequoyah, Oklahoma, Novalee notices, after her nap, that her shoes have gone through the car's floor boards . She asks Willy Jack to stop at the local Walmart so that she can go to the restroom and buy new shoes . The cashier is to give Novalee her change when she realizes the amount--$5.55 . She believes the number five to be a bad omen . Barefoot, she runs outside to find Willy Jack gone and he having left behind her and her new Polaroid camera . Having no other place to go she walks back inside and meets Thelma "Sister" Husband (Stockard Channing), who runs the Welcome Wagon in town . After Sister presents her with a buckeye tree, Novalee also meets Moses Whitecotton (Keith David), a local photographer who advises her to give her baby a strong name . A sickly Novalee soon runs into the restroom to vomit, only to discover the store has closed for the day . She lives in the Walmart, undetected, while spending her days walking around town or visiting the library before returning to the store during the night . Meanwhile Willy Jack is charged with fraternizing with a minor, and stealing from a convenience store . During his tenure in prison he composes a country song, "Beat of the Heart ." </P> <P> Novalee soon meets Forney Hull (James Frain), the surly libarian who looks after his alcoholic librarian sister Mary Elizabeth (Margaret Hoard) when Novalee seeks information on nurturing her buckeye tree, which she plants in Sister's yard . During a thunderstorm, Novalee, who has been living in the Walmart since Willy Jack abandoned her, goes into labor and she collapses in aisle 5 . After struggling to pull herself into another aisle due to her phobia of fives, Forney, who is now in awe of Novalee, and had seen her enter the store at closing time, smashes through the window to help deliver her child . Novalee instantly becomes a media darling, and in hospital is befriended by Lexie Coop (Ashley Judd), a nurse with four children by three different men . After she tells an astonished Novalee her children are all named after snack foods - Brownie, Praline, Cherry and Baby Ruth, Novalee declares her own daughter will be named Americus . Novalee's estranged mother Mama Lil (Sally Field), visits her daughter after hearing of the news on television, and offers to help her raise the baby, but Novalee soon realises to her dismay and disgust that money had been Mama Lil's only motive after the latter scarpers off with the $500 that Novalee had received as a gift from the President of Walmart . Now homeless and penniless, Sister Husband arrives and offers to take in Novalee and Americus . One night, while Novalee and her new friend Forney are shopping for Christmas trees, Forney remarks that Americus is 5 months old that day . Novalee is alarmed at the realization and hurries home to check Americus . Upon arriving, she finds the police at her home and learns Americus has been kidnapped . Novalee remembers that in the hospital she received a card from Midnight, Mississippi saying her baby was an "abomination under God," because she was born out of wedlock . The police quickly apprehend a vehicle with Mississippi plates and Americus is found safe in a nativity scene outside a church . </P>

Who plays novalee in where the heart is