The Texas Canon: How 'Hope Floats' reminds Texans what it’s like to go home again

Welcome to the Texas Canon, a series that dives into the movies, TV shows, books, albums and more that represent us and reach far beyond the Lone Star State’s borders. Today, we look the romantic drama 'Hope Floats,' which was set in Smithville, Texas. 

It’s not a new story. Small-town girl moves to the big city, goes through some devastating heartbreak, moves back home and finds not just the small-town heartthrob, but also herself. 

That’s the basic plot of Hope Floats, the 1998 Forest Whittaker film starring Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick Jr. Bullock plays Birdee Pruitt, who’s just found out (on national TV!) that her husband has been having an affair with her best friend. She packs up her Chicago home and her young daughter Bernice and road trips to move in with her mother in Smithville, Texas. There, she reconnects with Justin Matisse (Connick), who paints houses for a living and has apparently long pined for Birdee.

I’m from Smithville. They didn’t even change the name of the town for the movie. Whittaker brought his full cast and crew in the summer of 1997 to show my small town the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to it.

In the road trip montage near the film's start, Birdee and Bernice roll past a big “Welcome to Smithville” sign. Now, more than a quarter-century after that was filmed, the sign reads “Smithville, home of Hope Floats” and then, almost as an afterthought, “Home of the Tigers,” the junior high and high school mascot. 

Watching Hope Floats, you may not recognize some of the locales, like Huebel’s Bier Garten in the center of town or Watterson Hall, where you can still two-step many a Saturday night. Your great-grandparents and great-uncles and great-everythings probably aren’t buried in the cemetery behind the church where Birdee’s mom’s funeral was held. Your parents probably didn’t get married in that church, and they also probably weren’t going through a divorce at the same time you first watched this movie about a little girl whose parents were also getting a divorce.

And you likely didn’t watch Bullock and Connick walk up and down Main Street approximately 50 times (at least, it felt like it to a 5-year-old on a hot summer day) as Justin asks Birdee out for the first time, over and over again. 

I did. I watched my dad, who worked for the Lower Colorado River Authority for decades and was enlisted to help out with the company float during the parade scene, film deep into the night before my grandma decided it was too late and took me home. (He didn’t make it into the movie, but he did get to shake Forest Whittaker’s hand.) It was an absolute thrill, not just for 5-year-old me but for the entire town. Hope Floats is special to us, 27 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes be damned. But Hope Floats isn’t just special because it was filmed in my small town. It’s special because it feels like it could have been filmed in any small town in Texas. 

You may not recognize the locations, but you’ll recognize the question “I thought you moved to Houston?” and the reply “I’m in town for the weekend.” You’ll laugh when Justin asks Bernice, “So how do you like it down here in Smithville?” and Bernice says, “It wasn’t on any maps until we got to Texas.” And again when Justin leaves and says, “I’ll see you around, that’s what’s great about a small town.” You’ll see the homecoming mums hanging on Birdee’s childhood bedroom wall, and maybe you’ll smile at a memory or cringe at one.

The thing about Hope Floats, and Smithville, and probably about your small town, too, is that it’s more complicated than it looks at first glance. The historic buildings have their charm, but small-town gossip flies through them quickly. The tree-lined streets are safe enough for a little girl to ride her bike or walk home from school, but that same little girl learns that kids can be cruel. 

I used to watch these movies about a big-city woman moving back to her hometown and I never thought that would be me. I moved to Austin for college at 18 with Smithville in my rearview. But the older I get, the more I realize that there’s a reason these stories get told over and over again. The more I visit home, the more I remember how nice it is despite its flaws, how I like myself better when I have more room to breathe, when life moves a little slower, when I can see my dad whenever I feel like it. 

Apparently, millennials are moving back home at an increasing rate. And even if they’re not moving home, many of them are leaving cities for small towns (and some of them regret it). Everything you’ll read about it says it’s because of affordability issues, and that’s true. But I like to think there’s a little something more there. According to the New York Times, being (very specifically) 33 years old is kind of the worst. And I’m six months shy of my 33rd birthday. I don’t think millennials are killing cities solely because we can’t afford to live in them. I think we’re a generation who’s lived through, to loosely paraphrase the meme, way more unprecedented events than precedented ones, and we’re simply … tired. 

Watching Hope Floats reminds me how sweet a smaller life can be—after I’m done sobbing through the second half of the movie, at least. There’s something about a small town that appeals, especially to those of us with roots in one. There’s comfort in familiarity and nostalgia. There’s an appeal in building a house just down the road from your parents and knowing you can have a beer with them on the front porch anytime you want to. I’m starting to realize Smithville’s not the worst place to do that. And I’d bet your small town isn’t, either.

Katey Psencik Outka is a journalist and audio producer living in Austin. Currently, she works as the managing director of The Drag Audio Production House and teaches podcasting and journalism classes at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work has appeared in the Austin American-Statesman, The Daily Dot, Texas Highways, Eater and more.