Elizabethtown (2005)
Monday, February 27th, 2006
Written & Directed by: Cameron Crowe
Cast: Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Bruce McGill, Judy Greer, Jessica Biel, Paul Schneider.
Runtime: 123 min
Rating: PG-13
Trailer
At first I thought that my dislike for Cameron Crowe’s films after his hugely successful Jerry Maguire was misguided and stemmed from my increasing cynicism with Hollywood films. After watching Crowe’s latest film, Elizabethtown, I am glad to report that my hatred for his precocious brand of drama is indeed well founded and has, surprisingly, increased exponentially. This hackneyed tale of a down-on-his luck Orlando Bloom dispatched to his hometown of Elizabethtown, Kentucky to retrieve his dead father’s body is filled with such utter nonsense that it’s a mystery as to why the actors in this film all agreed to participate. Filled with wall-to-wall songs (that can only be described as a bad 80’s rock mix-tape), clumsy one note acting by the entire cast, a lousy screenplay without a semblance of dramatic conflict, and an overly sentimental atmosphere all conspire against Elizabethtown and rightly places it as one of the worst movies of the year (coming awfully close to achieving the level of inanity and disappointment of Spielberg’s War of the Worlds).
This disaster of cuteness starts off with Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) losing his job with a prestigious shoe company after his design invariably flops and loses the company close to one billion dollars. Intent on killing himself, Drew devises a stabbing device out of his exercise bike (cute!) and just before he delivers his fateful blow (and saving the audience of watching the rest of the film) he receives word that his father has died. On his trip over he is accosted by Claire (Kirsten Dunst), the cute and quirky airplane stewardess, who seems to exist with a bare minimum of believability, functioning instead as a bastion of quirks and whimsical head tilts. And in what must be a record for a romantic comedy, Claire and Drew fall for each other over a groan-inducing montage of an all-night phone conversation that has them say such profound things as “men see things in a box, and women see them in a round room” (huh?), and “I think I’ve been asleep most of my life”, all of which results in them meeting on the side of the road to watch a sunset (cute!). After watching scenes like this, I kept expecting that “Awwww…” sound made by the studio audience every time Danny Tanner and one of his kids hugged on Full House.
The main problem with the film then, after both character’s “find” each other, is that there’s nothing for them to do. There’s no amount of drama or conflict to keep the narrative moving forward to some sort of logical conclusion. A subplot with misbehaving kids and incompetent fathers goes nowhere and is abandoned just as soon as it’s introduced. Drew’s mother, Hollie (Susan Sarandon) – who learns to bake, cook organic food, repair cars, and tap dance all as a means of turning her grief into life affirming growth – smacks of faux sentimentality that grows increasingly more irritating when it ends in a horribly overwrought and pathetic attempt at tap dancing during her husband’s reception. All of the characters in Elizabethtown are like this. They are filled with nothing but whimsy and quirks, and defined by whatever new-age philosophy Crowe was reading (probably on the toilet) while writing the script. Even technically, the production doesn’t fare much better. John Toll’s (The Thin Red Line) cinematography is uninspiring and bland, capturing small time Americana with clichéd images that recall the Hallmark cards found at the local 7/11.
Actually, a Hallmark card is probably too much of a compliment. Elizabethtown is more like a Hallmark commercial. It’s filled with asinine characters that don’t do anything but look pretty and smile a lot, inoffensive light rock/pop on the soundtrack, and, most importantly, a product you don’t need. The film can ultimately be summed up with what Claire says during her chit-chat with Drew, “I’m hard to remember, but impossible to forget” (oh, so cute!), and she’s actually right, the sheer awfulness and undeniable schmaltz of Elizabethtown is indeed memorable, but please try hard to forget it. I already have.
Richard X
© Cinephile Magazine, 2006
