Hope Floats is a beautiful and touching romantic drama directed by Forrest Whittaker and produced by star Sandra Bullock. Birdee Pruitt's (Bullock) perfect world comes crashing down when her lying, cheating husband, Bill (Micheal Pare) and her best friend, Connie (Patricia Arquette), come clean about their affair during an appearance on a trashy daytime talk show. Brokenhearted and humiliated, Birdee takes her young daughter, Bernice (Mae Whitman), and returns to her Texas hometown to live with her eccentric, taxidermist mother, Ramona (Gena Rowlands). Life is not easy in Texas, either, as the women of Smithville haven't forgotten the former beauty queen's reign as the most popular girl in school, and take every opportunity to remind Birdee of her public humiliation. Bernice blames Birdee for the split, putting a strain on their relationship. Her life is further complicated by a growing attraction to handyman Justine Matisse (Harry Connick, Jr.), agitating her daughter, who wants nothing more than her parents to reconcile. Birdee must find the inner strength she didn't know she possessed to move forward with her life, and find hope for the future.moreless