Review of Elizabethtown

Introduction

Elizabethtown follows the turbulent life of aspiring young athletic-wear shoe designer, Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom).

Drew works for the behemoth Mercury Shoe Company and during an eight-year project produces the Spasmotica, which he thinks will revolutionise footwear forever. It doesn`t.

Nearly every single pair of Spasmoticas are recalled, resulting in estimated losses of $972m for eccentric Mercury owner, Phil DeVoss (Alec Baldwin) and global humiliation for the company.

Drew is, of course, fired, dumped by his colleague and girlfriend, Ellen (Jessica Biel) and decides the only thing left for him before the, "fiasco" hits the corporate newssheets is to kill himself.

He`s saved from his bizarre suicide attempt by a phone call from his sister (Judy Greer) telling him that their father has had a heart attack and died in Kentucky while visiting family.

Drew`s mother (Susan Sarandon) has long-term issues with his father`s family and his sister is a kook, so it`s left to Drew to fly down and bring his father home on his final journey.

He finds himself in Elizabethtown via a flight where he reluctantly befriends the only other person on the plane - the slightly annoying but wordly-wise and very persistent air stewardess, Claire (Kirsten Dunst).

She gives him her number, hotel vouchers and directions to the tight-knit community of Elizabethtown where everyone knows his name and couldn`t be friendlier.

Drew finds himself unable to forget the mysterious flight attendant and the pair further their friendship by meeting for the sunset following an all night phone call.

Things seem to be taking a turn for the better as the pair inevitably begin to fall for each other and Claire helps out, in her own inimitable style, with finally taking Drew`s father home.

Video

Aspect Ratio: 1.78 Anamorphic Wide Screen

Audio

Dolby Digital 5.1. A fantastic soundtrack.

Features

Training Wheels - A two-minute behind the scenes look at the cast rehearsing. Set to a nice southern-style song but as pointless as the film.

Meet the Crew - An introduction to the crew also set to nice music. (2mins30secs)

Rusty`s Learning to Listen Part 8

The 3mins 34secs programme Drew plays for the kids in the film to keep them quiet. Rusty blows up a house. It`s already in the film in its entirety.

Hanging with Russell in Memphis

The cast and crew go in to Earnestine and Hazel`s and chat to the current bar owner Russ. Russ talks about his experiences over the years as the owner of the famous bar and stories from the past when all the famous blues guitarists such as Albert and BB King hung out there. (7mins 30 secs).

Theatrical Trailers

Bad Day
Drew

Conclusion

This is the kind of movie that makes you sorry you purchased a DVD player. If I had seen this at the cinema I would have been tempted to walk out and I can`t ever remember doing that.

Director Cameron Crowe has a successful track record with hits such as Jerry MacGuire and Vanilla Sky, but this is sporadic, utterly pointless and tooth-achingly annoying.

Orlando Bloom is terrible. He is supposed to be representing a character at his lowest ebb. Sacked from his chosen career for causing one of the biggest financial losses of the century, dumped by his girlfriend and told his father has just passed away, you would expect the man to be slightly depressed.

Any suicide attempt at this point in his life would, at least, appear serious - you`d think.

No. Not at any point do you believe Bloom`s character would be capable or serious about such action.

He tries, by taping a kitchen knife to an exercise bike to fashion some kind of elaborate stabbing machine. Now I`m not wishing the lead character dead at this point or anything, honest, but why put this ridiculous scene in.

It`s a comedy, I nearly forgot. Where`s the laughs then? There is not one single laugh in this entire, sickly, saccharine mess of a film.

He keeps repeating at the start of the film, "I`m fine." I think because he`s meant to be in some form a catatonic state, unable to accept the magnitude of what`s happened and this is some kind of sanity-preserving mantra.

It just became really annoying as there`s no emotion coming from the character whatsoever, not a hint of bewilderment at his predicament.

It takes Drew precisely the length of a plane journey to forget that he`s single-handedly caused thousands of job losses and was on the brink of suicide when he left Oregon.

As soon as he gets off the plane he`s grinning from ear-to-ear. There`s a pathetic attempt to remind us that this character is suicidal by having him on the edge of his hotel sofa as a super sharp kitchen knife commercial is aired.

Strangely though, considering he plans to end his life when he gets home, he is now fully focussed on getting to know the air stewardess better, bouncing on his bed and doing those ridiculous public dances that only deliriously happy people in rom-coms do.

Kirsten Dunst is only slightly better. I did keep thinking throughout though that it was not really her fault. She is forced to over act so much by starring opposite Bloom and because of the complete lack of script that it is almost painful to watch at some points.

The scene where the couple finally sleep together and she is unable to wake him is a shining example of this - it`s completely pointless.

I felt at times that Dunst had lost total faith half way through and was just doing anything to fill celluloid.

Another scene sees the couple in the function suite of the hotel where Drew is staying. It`s blatantly obvious they have returned to their room and left his father`s ashes urn in the hall so I was almost crying when they went all the way back for it for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

I can only think that it was meant to be funny that they left it there in the first place.

Susan Sarandon has a good scene at the funeral party where she talks about her husband and ends up tap dancing, but this is really her only significant scene in the film.

Paul Schneider is the real star of the movie. He plays Drew`s cousin Jessie Baylor, and apart from Alec Baldwin who is great in almost everything, is the only decent thing in it.

He has, by far the best scene where he performs with his old band at the funeral party. They do a great rendition of Lynrd Skynrd`s Free Bird and a huge papier mache bird they`re using as a prop catches fire.

The biggest disappointment in the film though is the plot. It completely loses it. Every scene seems to be totally futile. For example, the scene where they talk all night on the phone and then meet for the sunset, I was thinking something significant must happen after all this.

No, they drive off home separately after about three minutes.

There are so many confusing, nonsense scenes like this that the whole film just becomes very tedious.

The big plus for the movie though is the soundtrack. The music is constant throughout and the tracks are very well chosen and mostly brilliant - lots of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and great blues tunes.

The soundtrack may be well worth a listen then but the film is not worth a look.