Heart Like a Wheel  

By Marshall Fine

This was one of those little movies in the early 1980s that had to struggle to reach audiences because the studios weren't sure how to market it. That's a shame because it had in Bonnie Bedelia an appealingly gritty leading lady. She plays real-life drag-race driver Shirley Muldowney in a biopic about Muldowney's uphill fight to make it in what was at that point a man's sport. Beside battling sexist attitudes, Muldowney also has to cope with issues of career-vs.-family, as well as the struggle between romance and competition when she falls for another driver (Beau Bridges). Heart Like a Wheel was directed by Jonathan Kaplan, who seems to have made a career of films that have trouble making it to the marketplace.

Academy Awards

Heart Like a Wheel received an Academy Awards nomination for Costume Design (William Ware Theiss).

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