I live in central Kentucky so I've been to Elizabethtown, the locals call it E-town, and Louisville. Since Elizabethtown was filmed in both of these cities and the surrounding areas, it has a greater appeal to residents like myself. If you ever have the opportunity to visit our neck of the woods, you'll fall in love with the natural beauty of the bluegrass region and the down-to-earth friendliness of its people. Just thought some of you might appreciate a little personal note as a lead-in to the review that follows. The reviewer gives a good synopsis of the movie but his conclusion won't necessarily match your own experience while watching it . . .
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Oscar winner Cameron Crowe gave us the heart-felt, and good film "Jerry Maguire". In that film, Tom Cruise plays a sports agent who has a mental breakdown, loses his career, has to find himself and start again. In "Elizabethtown", Orlando Bloom plays a hot-shot designer who loses his career, has a mental breakdown, almost commits suicide, and then begins a journey to find himself and start again. Anything familiar there? Well, there is one major difference between the two: "Jerry Maguire" was a well done film, "Elizabethtown" is not. There are a lot of factors why this film just doesn't gel together very well. Overall, this film just doesn't grab you, least of which being that it's already been done before, just with certain particulars changed.
The script and direction ultimately don't set us up very well. The film has the same kind of tone as "Jerry Maguire" from the outset but for some reason, the idea that Bloom designed one shoe that lost his company a billion dollars (and not seeing the lead-up to that, we start after the fact) doesn't seem to be as believable. I guess it could happen but for the purposes of this film, I didn't really click with it. From the point on, you can see the filmmakers are trying really hard to get you hooked in to the supposed 'realness' of the characters and their situations but again, unlike "Jerry Maguire", you just don't feel it and feel strangely detached from it.
One of the major factors in this is Orlando Bloom; he's a great actor but he doesn't seem to be the type of actor who can headline a film. It's through him that you have to invest in the rest of the film and it doesn't help that he only really has three different looks on his face throughout the film. From his character's emotional standpoint, he doesn't look all that different at the end than what he did at the beginning. He also doesn't look comfortable in the role he's playing; almost as if he's not sure how he should be reacting in certain situations. This leads to some forced performing which is unfortunate.
Kirsten Dunst lifts this film up a notch or two whenever she appears. She is the only one who seems to capture the essence of the characters she is playing as the positive and uplifting Claire who reminds Drew that it's not the end of the world even if he spectacularly failed in his work. A strong message to be sure but when Bloom doesn't convey it, well, it just doesn't matter. Susan Sarandon is also strong as Drew's mother and has an uplifting scene at her husband's memorial when she tap dances to the crowd who up until that point did not respect her for taking their friend and brother away from them.
There's an attempt on behalf of the filmmakers to inject music to convey themes, and Drew's roadtrip through the States where he eventually meets with Claire is an excellent example. Drew gets to see how others have lived their lives, and possibly for more important things. This technique worked well in "Jerry Maguire" but here just seems like filler. Director Crowe has done an amicable job in the past of recreating melancholy and personal nostalgia in his films but it's gone wayward in this effort, mainly because the core premise and the lack of investment in the lead character are way off target.
For example, what could have been an effective scene occurs when Drew visits the motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated. It's one of the very few moments that the look on Bloom's face actually matches the intention of the scene when he realises that losing money on a shoe pales in comparison to what King accomplished in his life time. But the problem is that we've seen the same look on Bloom's face in previous scenes... and then scenes after that one... so there doesn't seem to be any journey taking place for the character. So if it doesn't look like it's happening for him, why should it happen for us in the audience?
This is the type of film that has all the parts but isn't able to bring those parts together to make the magic. There's a lot in here that would sustain an excellent film but it just doesn't work. You can see it would have worked well on paper and it's an object lesson about the importance of direction and acting in either elevating or denigrating a piece of material.
Overall, this film just isn't good and doesn't work despite all of its good intentions.
For the original DVD review, click this link: http://www.allaboutmovies.net/dvdreviewelizabethtown.htm
Alex DeMattia is the lead DVD reviewer at the film/DVD review web site All About Movies.net - He also contributes reviews and articles for the Digicosm Film Blog: http://www.filmannex.com/Digicosm
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