This review deals with accuracy, not political correctness. I was an idealistic 11 year old girl living 90 minutes from Oxford, MS, and Ole Miss in 1957--the year and setting for this film. I can confirm several things: (1) For anyone interested, the wardrobe for the female cast is so dead-on accurate to the times, it's almost scary. When (early on) a coed flounces into the room modeling her new sweater--exact replicas of that sweater were gracing the halls in my school. The other fashions were spot on and had me reliving those years. (2) This is totally accurate sorority-girl-college-life in this era. It is based more on Ole Miss than a fictitious Alabama school. Bit of TRIVIA--two sorority sisters who lived in the same house at Ole Miss went on to become Miss America 1958 and Miss American 1959: Mary Ann Mobley (58) and Lynda Lee Meade (59). If you'd like a glimpse into what it was like to live in a sorority house on a southern campus--this is it.(3)Through the turbulent 60's, often Southern schools were oddly separate from the war protests and flag-burnings occurring on other campuses. I was in college in Mississippi from 1964-1968, and our campus was as peaceful as a Sunday School picnic. (4) Lastly, re: the interaction between Maggie and the two African American cooks in the sorority house kitchen. It's more politically correct to argue today that black-white friendship, love and cordiality didn't exist--that it was never this way--but I lived it. I both witnessed and experienced scenes like that of genuine affection, laughter--and yes, even scolding--from older women to these younger pampered girls more times than I can count.SUMMARY: For fashion accuracy, setting accuracy, and a couple of scenes depicting interracial relationships, it's accurate. I lived it. As for the acting and direction--I can't speak to that.

This is a movie that strives to be more than it is, but fails miserably. The plot is simple. A college senior, at a southern university in 1957 experiences an awakening, and realizes that she does not want the life that has long been planned for her, with the rich boyfriend and life of ease. Rather, she decides she wants to fight for racial equality, even if that means expulsion from school and the loss of everything she has.Heart of Dixie tries very hard, but ultimately it simply does not work. The actresses' accents come and go, and sound as if they are rejects from the cast of Gone with the Wind. The characters are underdeveloped, making it hard to care what happens to them and the movie itself drags. Oddly enough, Phoebe Cates barely has a presence in the film, but receives third billing. Essentially, this is a movie to watch when nothing else is on. Other than that, it is best to avoid it.

The book this shameful, waste-of-time movie was based upon is actually quite good. It's called "Heartbreak Hotel" by Anne Rivers Siddons; she writes often about the South and being a mid-westerner, I'm grateful for some of the history and cultural explanations I've gleaned from her novels. Though she frequently can pour it on pretty thickly with lots of words, I find her character development to be good. That's why this movie was so disappointing; everyone was shallow and one-dimensional, there was no attraction for me to see between Maggie and Hoyt. And the sensationalism of Maggie confronting the black woman was blatant pandering and insulting to any of us who grew up during the civil rights years. Shame on the people who re-wrote a decent, moral book into this trashy screenplay! What a waste of talent and money.

I enjoyed this movie very much. I remember the time very well and the social & racial barriers that went with it. I think this movie was very accurate in showing how much the young emerging adults were going thru, what they were really like. (Much like the movie MONA LISA SMILES shows us about another area of the same period in time.) It shows not only breaking out of their social naivety but how hard it was to step outwith the awakening conscience of what is right and wrong, even when it went against what they were taught. It shows the dying embers of the old South "privileged class'" finally breaking into the 20th century.I also think we could use more of this caliber of movie making. Where the "true stories" with accuracy portrayed. A movie that gives the generations to come something to learn from, as well as being entertaining. I think it is the best of Ally Sheedy.