By Sahsa Williams
Take I-65 South, and soon enough, you’ll end up in Elizabethtown – the setting for director Cameron Crowe’s latest semi-autobiographical offering to American moviegoers.
The plotline stems from Crowe’s own 20-something experience with success and failure while simultaneously dealing with the unexpected death of his father. And, true to form, Crowe throws in a beautiful girl just for fun.
The film stars Orlando Bloom as Drew, a young man who has devoted the last eight years of his life to designing a shoe that ends up being a colossal failure.
Before he can blink, he’s fired, his girlfriend breaks it off and his father dies. His neurotic mother, played convincingly by Susan Sarandon, gives Drew the unpleasant task of flying across the country to retrieve his father’s body. His journey takes him to Elizabethtown, Ky., where his father’s family lives.
Up to that point in the plot, the movie has been one big downer. But then the beautiful Claire, played by Kirsten Dunst, arrives on the scene. Claire is a flight attendant from Louisville who charms both Drew and the audience with her unstoppable optimism and earnest attempts to welcome Drew to a state that’s completely foreign to him.
Drew is also reunited with a plethora of relatives he barely remembered he had, including overbearing uncles, smoother-you-with-love aunts and bratty cousins. This hilarious cast of kooks will remind anybody of home.
Audiences in Kentucky will recognize downtown Louisville, Fourth Street Live, the Brown Hotel and Cave Hill Cemetery.
At the sneak peek last Wednesday, Showcase 16 audience members exclaimed loudly over each familiar landmark, and applauded when the University of Louisville silos were shown.
In an interview on Thursday, Crowe he said that he was “so glad to hear” the silos were there – they had been edited out and Crowe said he pushed to get them put back in.
The scenes that take place in Elizabethtown excellently capture the feel of small-town Kentucky. Crowe said he strove to accurately portray what life is like in this state instead of simply embracing the myths.
“I really wanted to celebrate Kentucky,” he said. “Although Orlando is playing a guy who is a stranger in a strange land, that strange land is really the epicenter of his family roots. And that’s what I felt like when I was back in Kentucky.”
A few of the accents are overdone, but for the most part Elizabethtown doesn’t play its characters as stereotypical Southerners. There is a lot of hugging, cooking and Skynard – but hey, that sounds like Kentucky to me.
Critics have been less than kind to Elizabethtown. Most have bashed it as over- sentimental, and too confusing.
It is a multi dimensional movie with several subplots that requires the audience to think a little. If you want to simply sit back and absorb, this movie probably isn’t the one for you.
Brian Orndof, senior reviewer for Filmfodder, wrote “Cameron Crowe makes motion pictures about moments, not momentum. Maybe that’s why his films tend to annoy a select few in the world who can’t wrap their minds around screenplays that take pride in baring their optimistic soul.”
It’s not a typical romantic comedy – it’s a Cameron Crowe film, which means it’s a little too long, it has a great soundtrack, and the people who get this film will love it, and those that don’t will hate it.
