Right Stuff

By RICHARD CORLISS

HEART LIKE A WHEEL

Directed by Jonathan Kaplan Screenplay by Ken Friedman

There they go--vrooom!--tearing up 400 yards of Middle America. The two hot-rod drivers are enacting the Automobile Age's axiom of machismo: Speed thrills. Ten seconds later, the cars barrel across the finish line and the winner steps out, shaking her shoulder-length hair, allowing herself a tight, triumphant smile. Shirley Muldowney, dragstrip ace.

In format, Heart Like a Wheel occupies the ragged terrain somewhere between old B movies and new TV movies. A blue-collar inspirational, it follows Muldowney from her teen-age nights on New Jersey back roads in the 1950s to her unprecedented third National Hot Rod Association world championship title last year. As with the Mercury space program, drag racing is largely an achievement of the designers and mechanics; the driver is a high-risk passenger who needs guts as much as skill to command a vehicle packing 2,500 h.p. and moving at 250 m.p.h. with a force of 3 g's. In competition with a pack of cynical road jockeys) Muldowney proved herself an astronaut of asphalt--a woman with the right stuff.

The movie's virtues are rare ones these days: honesty, modesty and a respect for all its characters. Shirley's husband (Leo Rossi) may have a streak of envy that festers into malice, but he is portrayed sympathetically as a man incapable of understanding that his no-nonsense housewife could beat him at a man's game. Connie Kalitta, Shirley's lover once she hits the circuit, is a hell-raising womanizer, but in Beau Bridges' engaging performance one can see Connie as an endangered species in a game that TV is trying to streamline into respectability. "This used to be a rowdy sport," Connie recalls. "Now they want to make us into damn ... golf!"

In the daunting role of Shirley--aging easily from 17 to 42 in 113 minutes of screen time, awakening slowly to the challenge of her own expertise, proving herself one of the boys while still very much Daddy's little girl--Bonnie Bedelia is quietly spectacular. Her soft eyes, tiny voice and sneaky shy smile have previously cast her as the noble loser; here she shows that those emblems of vulnerability can hide reserves of humor and resilience. This is a wonderfully American kind of acting: technically resourceful, but unforced and radiant. Heart Like a Wheel is a pretty darn good movie, but Bonnie Bedelia--wow! This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.