“Interminable Dramedy Is Nothing to Crowe About”

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that you really want to like, but you just can’t. The acting, directing, etc. is fine, but the sum of the movie’s parts leaves you dubious, disappointed or downright confused.

Speaking of confusion, the “Huh?” factor is ubiquitous in the latest five-course banquet served up by writer/director Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire). Dubbed Elizabethtown—a sprawling, writhing piece of dramatic/romantic yarn that tells an involved tale with little lasting value—the movie features some amusing vignettes, but ultimately neglects to provide an overarching theme.

Sneaker designer, Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom), has created a new, cutting-edge tennis shoe that’s been rejected, en masse, by the shoe-buying public, causing the company he works for to eat a million dollars. Drew is in the process of attempting suicide when his frantic sister calls—Drew’s father has died. Volunteered by his immediate family to make the funeral arrangements, Drew catches a red eye flight to Lexington. An ebullient stewardess, Claire (Kirsten Dunst), befriends (virtually stalks) Drew, tries out some pop psychology on him and gives him a map of Kentucky and her phone number as he debarks the plane.

Drew experiences severe culture shock when he arrives in Elizabethtown: his entire extended family envelops him, each relative brimming with colorful stories about his deceased father whom he hardly knew. Drew is soon drawn into the middle of a heated debate regarding his father’s upcoming funeral: should his father be buried or cremated? Amid the craziness, Claire pops up again, but only to string Drew along some more until she finally deals with her commitment issues and allows the bud of her romantic feelings for Drew come into full bloom.

After two hours (which feels like two days), the movie, at last, brings us to the long-awaited and unconventional funeral, which features a swooping, flaming boar and a head-scratching tap dance by Drew’s mother, played by Susan Sarandon (I nearly checked out here). Most of the funeral belongs in a slap-stick comedy and feels incongruous with the rest of the movie.

When the funeral finally, mercifully concludes (my friend turned to me in the theater and whispered, “As far as I’m concerned, it’s not over.” He was right. The movie drags on for another half hour), Drew undertakes a journey of self-discovery and emotional healing—which is what the movie should have been about from the very beginning. As Drew drives across the central U.S., following clues that Claire has placed for him in advance, he works things out with his dad; talking, laughing and yelling at the ash-filled urn sitting in the passenger seat. This sojourn is the most enjoyable part of the movie, but, unfortunately, it can’t bail out the previous two hours, which are filled with exhausting character development of shallow lives and events both random (Chuck and Cindy’s wedding) and commonplace, all of which brings the viewer to a mental state similar to Drew’s before his sister calls.

Elizabethtown is an insipid comedy, a dense drama, a frequently aimless character study and a plodding quagmire of subplots all rolled into one—there’s no clear sense of place or purpose until the very end. Crowe’s direction is ponderous and the overall effect of the film is like a shot of Novocain in the brain—the numbness eventually wears off, and in a few hours, the spectator has no recollection of the movie whatsoever.

Bloom is fairly convincing and Dunst does her giggles and dimples best, but their solid performances fail to elevate the superfluous storyline and leaden dialogue, which is an amalgamation of the worst B-movie lines ever written. The most distracting element in the movie (besides Dunst’s atrocious Southern accent) is the voluminous soundtrack; a veritable Time Life collection of pop tunes that can be heard at regular intervals (generally every two to five minutes) throughout the film, the music feels less like a score and more like a juke box with a broken record.

In short, Elizabethtown is an utterly meaningless film that’s entirely too long (like this review). But, hey, it could be worse…the first cut of the film was eighteen minutes longer.

Rating: 2

Tags: Comedy, Drama, Romance