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Elizabeth-town
Directed by: Cameron Crowe
Starring: Orlando Bloom
Genre:
Comedy/Drama/ Romance
Run Time: 123
min.
Release Date:
October 2005
On The Web:
Official
Site
Teaser:
Movie Trailer
Reviewed by
Byron Merritt |
ELIZABETHTOWN is a
film trying to get too many messages across in too short a time. Being a
pretty big Cameron Crowe fan (VANILLA SKY, 2001), I came into
this movie with high expectations. Some of them were met (music
selection, unusual use of camera on characters), but the basic story and
how it all came together obviously held too many challenges even in the
expert hands of someone like Mr. Crowe.
The story (if you can believe it) is about a shoe designer named Drew
Baylor (Orlando Bloom,
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST)
who just lost his employer's sneaker company nearly a billion dollars.
Having dedicated the last eight years of his life to making this
shoe-gone-bad, Drew heads to his apartment with suicide on his mind. But
before he can kill himself, his phone rings (cliche'?) and it's his
sister telling him that their father just died. Being the eldest child,
he is assigned to head to Kentucky, retrieve their father's body from
"the other side of the family", and prepare it for cremation. Drew
decides to delay his own death while dealing with his father's. So he
packs up and heads to Kentucky ...but on the flight there he runs into a
beautiful (if somewhat confused) stewardess named Claire (Kirsten Dunst,
MARIE ANTOINETTE)
who forms a strange bond with him. They chat awkwardly on the plane and
Claire forces information onto Drew about how to get to Elizabethtown
without getting lost (and, of course, he does get lost).
Eventually — after finding his way to Elizabethtown — Drew has to deal
with his father's side of the family. But they're accepting, loving, and
have a southern charm about them that's centered around food and family
and more food.
Drew calls Claire one night and they talk all night long, then decide to
meet up again. A relationship starts to blossom, but each is held back
by secrets (Claire tells Drew she has a boyfriend and Drew hasn't told
Claire about his monumental shoe failure.) Getting involved in a
stranger's wedding, deciding whether or not to cremate Dad, dealing with
family on both sides of the U.S., finding love, accepting loss and
failure, traveling across the States, refinding love, and a multitude of
other items are touched on in the film. But only just.
The movie's length was obviously an issue. It was only two hours. For a
film that's trying to cover so much ground, more time was needed. The
impact of Drew's father's death — and Drew's travels across the U.S.
with his father's ashes — lost its impact on me because of all the other
side stories (his mother's near mental meltdown, his sister having to
deal with their mother, coping with out-of-control children by having
them watch a video on blowing-up a house, etc.) On the upside, this is a
story about life. It shows everything that goes on between birth and
death and love and hate. It's beautifully edited with an excellent
soundtrack. It just needed more time to help completely flesh-out all of
the story lines.
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Image from Elizabethtown
DVD cost: $10.41
Purchase:
Tower.com
Film Review Stew
Favorite? No.
Stew Poo-Poo? No.
Newsworthy:
On Claire's road map for
Drew, there is a quote by R. Hammond and J. Bebe. Russell Hammond and
Jeff Bebe were two of Stillwater's members in Cameron Crowe's film
Almost Famous.
Movie Quote: "And
just when I thought things couldn't get any worse."
Other Actors/Actresses
from Elizabethtown
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