Elizabethtown Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)October 13th, 2005
ELIZABETHTOWN
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2005 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
"There is a difference between a failure and a fiasco," Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) explains to us in voice-over in the introduction to ELIZABETHTOWN. This self-referential film by writer and director Cameron Crowe (ALMOST FAMOUS) seems at times to be speaking about Crowe's own problems, especially about his last movie, VANILLA SKY, a big budget disaster, which starred Cruise and Cruz.
Drew is a hotshot young star working for Phil DeVoss (Alec Baldwin), the CEO of Mercury Shoes in Oregon. Phil is obviously supposed to be Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. Drew has just lost so much money on his new shoe design -- almost a billion dollars -- that Phil is going to have to shut down the company's altruistic project to save the world by rescuing the environment. It is a business mistake so huge that it has been said that it "may cause an entire generation to return to bare feet."
Although the critics have been dumping on ELIZABETHTOWN ever since Crowe showed a bulky version at the Toronto Film Festival, the film, now trimmed by 18 minutes, is full of big laughs and delicious dialog. Even if it still could use another 10 minutes of fat sliced away, the version I saw, which is the version that will be released, is delightful. An ode to small-town America, this good-spirited film is set in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, where Drew has gone to bury his father, who grew up there. An on-going joke with the locals, all of whom adored his father, is that Drew is from California, since his father lived there briefly with Drew's mother (Susan Sarandon) before they moved to Oregon. The joke seems to be that the two states are interchangeable to the folks in Elizabethtown. Both are strange states on the Left Coast.
On the way to the funeral, Drew meets an airline stewardess named Claire Colburn. Kirsten Dunst's initial performance is so over-the-top as Claire that you feel like yelling at her to dial it down a couple of notches, please. Perhaps the movie's biggest surprise is that Claire's pushy character turns into one that is both endearing and genuine. Dunst and Bloom have cute chemistry in the film, as they bond for a long period of time as new best buds. After a cell phone call that lasts for hours and hours, Claire comes to Elizabethtown and helps Drew through his crisis.
What isn't the least bit surprising are the musical choices. Crowe, as always, plays dozens of songs for us in his personal mix tape that is the movie's sound track, and they are all great.
The best part of the picture are the lines. At one point, late in the movie, Claire complains to Drew, "You're always trying to break up with me, and we're not even together."
In the one long scene in the film that might have been even better in the longer Toronto version of the movie, Sarandon really knocks 'em dead in a great stand-up comedy routine on a stage during her husband memorial service. She even attempts a tap dance number. Let's hope Crowe tap dances past the film's bad reviews and gets good box office for this homespun charmer. Audiences will like it if they'll just ignore all of those negative comments coming from the critics.
ELIZABETHTOWN runs 2:03. It is rated PG-13 for "language and some sexual references" and would be acceptable for kids around 8 and up.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, October 14, 2005. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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