Smoking

What irked me most was the smoking! Most of the main characters smoked frequently, and that distracted me from the telling of the story. If the smoking had some function in the development of a character, or in the movement of the plot, I wouldn't object. Few people still smoke in the economic and social bracket of the characters in "American Quilt," and those who do, especially in California, are forever going through apologetic behavior about it. It's possible the student (Winona Ryder) might have been a smoker, since some students smoke as a kind of death-defying statement.