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Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom inexplicably fall in love in "Elizabethtown."Review
Filmgoers should avoid visits to 'Elizabethtown'
Weak characterization and shoddy plotting hurt likeable actors' and director's reputations.
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Let's just say it: "Elizabethtown" is a mess. After a bright-enough start, the film sputters about contemplating Southern life, true love and the importance of family before it suddenly takes off on a shockingly far-fetched road trip. It's one of those movies that goes 20 directions at once and gets nowhere.
This would traditionally be the paragraph where a reviewer goes, "but on the other hand..." and delivers the good news that despite such problems "Elizabethtown" manages to be delightful and witty and touching. Don't hold your breath waiting for any such paragraph.
Yes, Kirsten Dunst is darling and, yes, Alec Baldwin has a small bit as a shoe tycoon in the film's beginning that's hilarious. But neither of those facts makes up for the massive aimlessness of writer-director Cameron Crowe ("Almost Famous," "Jerry Maguire"). There are individual scenes and runs of dialogue that show Crowe's characteristic flair, but the way this movie is put together brings to mind a monkey throwing pudding at a blackboard.
The big loser here -- aside from expectant audience members -- is star Orlando Bloom, landing in his second consecutive flop with a name director (his first was this summer's "Kingdom of Heaven," directed by Ridley Scott). Bloom seems to be working hard, but what he's doing hardly works.
He plays Drew Baylor, a shoe designer who, as the film begins, has just found out his new design is destined to be the biggest flop in the history of shoes, and his company is going to lose billions. He is planning his own suicide when he gets a call: His father has died unexpectedly while visiting relatives in Kentucky.
Egged on by his neurotic mother (Susan Sarandon) and panicked sister (Livonia girl Judy Greer), Drew postpones his own death a few days to claim his father's remains. So off he flies on a red eye to Kentucky. While in the air, he meets flight attendant Claire Colburn (Dunst), who inexplicably seems to fall madly in love with him on sight. She's very cute, but he's still contemplating suicide.
Drew drives to the titular town of his father's youth and immediately stumbles into a deep well of redneck jokes. Not really, but the script certainly does as Crowe trots out women with beehive hairdos, slow-witted cousins, country blowhards and loud kids, all of whom are supposed to make audiences feel right at home while comfortably superior.
Drew spends the bulk of the movie conversing with Claire, first by phone and then in person, while sorting out the matter of his father's remains and getting to know these fine down-home folks. Then, after a complete embarrassment of a memorial service -- for the director as well as the characters -- he sets off on a road trip to find himself, America and true love.
Crowe was obviously going for an epic feel, and he likely filmed an epic-length film, because this one looks as if it's had a lot of stuff cut out to get it down to even a barely acceptable length. Both the middle of the film and the ridiculous ending seem to stutter and stop and lurch (you get the feeling the director's cut DVD version will be four hours long).
Even worse, nothing rings true here, and true is what Crowe has done so well before. You never get a sense of who Drew's father was or why he was so beloved. Greer's character seems hysterical from the beginning while Sarandon's wife never shows any grief. Claire seems to fall in love for no good reason (OK, he's cute, but ...) and the false finale of the memorial service is completely lacking in heart.
Essentially, Crowe gives us no reason to care for any of these people and then he shows them doing nothing in particular. This, folks, is not entertainment.
Look, every writer needs an editor, some outside perspective to comment and carve, to help shape and contain a work and make sure it's both recognizable and pointed. If Crowe had an editor on "Elizabethtown," it sure doesn't show. This is a good writer stumbling about unleashed and wobbly. And the result is one of this year's biggest disappointments.
You can reach Tom Long at (313) 222-8879 or tlong@detnews.com.
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