Winona Ryder stars in this overt, slush film about a girl who's at a crossroads in her life.

Finn, a Berkeley graduate student is engaged to be married. Only she's not sure if her finance is the right guy. So she decides to spend some time thinking it over at her grandmother's house. While there she gets to cheat on her soon-to-be husband in the name of making sure that she's not making a big mistake. But, morals aside, the rest of the film focuses not on Finn, but on her grandmother's quilting bee. Each of the members gets to tell her their own story of love and betrayal in quite moments with her.

What "How to Make an American Quilt" fails at is the stories. They have surprisingly little depth, and while the female characters have well-rounded personalities - the males are stereotypical and rough hewn.

The filmmaking on "American Quilt" is polished and pure; yet the storyline is - in a word - rustic.

Copyright (c) 1995 Tony Zidek