Elizabethtown

This was the beginning of the end for Cameron Crowe. He has made two movies since, and neither was terribly well received, but it was Elizabethtown that went from anticipation to antipathy, marking what seems to be the rest of his career. It didn't help that the reception at the Toronto International Film Festival was so resoundingly negative that Crowe did an emergency cut that drastically reduced the film's length before its wide release.

The movie begins with the main character, Drew Baylor, discussing the difference between a failure and a fiasco, fodder for critics who didn't like the film overall. Drew was the lead designer on a new type of shoe that was met with critical anticipation and then derision once it was released, costing the Mercury Shoe Company $972 million. He contemplates suicide and comes up with a plan involving a kitchen knife and an exercise bike when his sister calls with news of his father's death in Kentucky. Setting out to accomplish the one goal of bringing his father's body back to Oregon for cremation and spreading his ashes at sea, he flies to Louisville. On the flight he meets Claire.

A lot of the critical drubbing the movie received was over Claire. It went so far as a critic ended up coining the term "Manic Pixie Dreamgirl" in direct response to this film. I'll admit that Claire is a problem in the film, even with my interpretation that she doesn't actually exist. She's too available, too cute, too open to Drew too early, and probably written as a real person originally with some scenes that would have undermined my theory about her reality thrown to the cutting room floor. She sees Drew completely alone in coach on an overnight flight, begs him to come to first class, draws him a map to the small town of Elizabethtown, and gives him her number. This is a lot, but she ends up disappearing from the film for a good while, blunting that impact and impression.

Drew goes home, and this is where the film works best. Isolated from his father's extended family for pretty much his whole life, he suddenly finds a huge warm embrace to greet him. Cousins, uncles, aunts, and family friends he has only the vaguest of memories of are all incredibly happy to see the son of the man they loved. This feels genuine and infectious, reminding me of when I would go to see my own father's family in Tennessee. There are a lot of people with a lot of implied history who all seem to know Drew's father better than Drew ever did. This ends up matching rather well with Drew's own personal journey dealing with his own failure and the thought that he has nothing to live for anymore. The death of his father provides him a look at new life he had forgotten with years of work. It's not new stuff, but it's solidly told.

Drew goes to his hotel and has an all night conversation with Claire after he feels alone and ends up calling everyone he can just to have a conversation. They talk and talk in an extended montage that actually does feel rather sweet as they go from one topic to the next from shot to shot. It implies the sort of easy connection between two people meant to be together. It's nice.

The rest of Drew's trip to Elizabethtown is dominated by the final discussions on what to do with his father's body with him standing strong on his father's final wishes for cremation, only to succumb to his family's wishes for burial in Elizabethtown too late to make a difference. The final wake and celebration of the man's life is actually a really nice demonstration of how people mourn in different ways, the centerpiece being Drew's mother using comedy to tell the estranged family why she loved her husband and how she'll miss him. It's odd and sweet.

Claire ends up dominating the last half hour of the film when she gives Drew an extremely detailed roadmap that she apparently created in an evening that takes Drew from Elizabethtown all the way back to Oregon, planned to the minute. He follows it, releasing bits of his father's ashes at certain spots, and eventually meeting Claire at the second largest flea market in the world. I'm not going to say the movie falls apart in this final half hour, but it's a weak ending. The movie seems to have lost any real focus by turning Drew's attention to a road trip and bits of Southern history like the visit to the hotel where Martin Luther King Junior was murdered. It feels random and out of place. Perhaps MLK's death is supposed to indicate that he died for something, a great victory in the end, with Drew's thoughts of suicide being selfish, but it's not really made clear and feels like an inappropriate way to use the assassination of a beloved figure. There had been bits of talk about Drew having planned a road trip with his father before his death, but it's Claire's voice that dominates the soundtrack, making it more about her than about Drew. I wonder if making it Drew saying the exact same things would have helped refocus the journey on where it should have been.

Now, my theory that Claire doesn't actually exist. She interacts almost exclusively with Drew. The only other people she ever speaks to are the engaged couple that are on the same floor as Drew in the hotel. She's never even seen by Drew's family or even talked about with them. Combined with the writing that makes her the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl, an unrealistic ideal of a movie creation that doesn't feel like a real woman, and it seems like a decent interpretation of her character that she actually ends up representing part of Drew's psyche rather than an actual person. She appears when thoughts of perhaps not ending it all start to perk up, and even the last shot of the film seems to underline that a bit. Drew finally gets some more voiceover in the ending, and his last word, "life", cuts to him embracing Claire in that flea market. Even in the assumption that she's real, she obviously is meant to represent more than just a woman, but Drew embracing life after his week in Kentucky. Is reading her as unreal a critical cover for bad writing? Maybe, but I do think it works.

The movie has its issues, but it is an open-hearted exploration of live after failure. That earnestness also seems to rub some people the wrong way, but I embrace it.

Elizabethtown (2005)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

OK, I just got back from seeing this and I must say that I'm really shocked. After reading various reviews and hearing from people I really wasn't expecting much but I've gotta say this is the biggest mess of a film that I've seen in a very long time.

Was the film suppose to be a drama about a son losing his father? Was it suppose to be some sort of romantic comedy? In my opinion it really seemed like Crowe wanted to make a film about a son losing his father but the studio said you have to throw in some sort of stupid romance to get more people into the theater. Well, the two sides didn't mix very well together. Even on their own both sides were seriously flawed but it made them even worse when stuck together. As others have mentioned, Dunst comes off more creepy than anything else. The first scene on the plane I kept waiting for her to pull out a knife or something. It was never really clear what the two saw in one another and the stuff over the phone didn't work at all. I also didn't understand what Crowe was going for in the father/son thing. I really couldn't tell if he (the son) was returning home because he cared for his dad or if he just did it so his mother/sister wouldn't have to go.

I personally feel it's okay to use music to "get the point across" but it's a fine line you've gotta walk to pull this off. "Secret Garden" worked well in JERRY MAGUIRE and "Tiny Dancer" worked brilliantly well in ALMOST FAMOUS but none of the music here really paid off. Perhaps it's because I didn't feel any connection between the two leads. As for the performances I really don't think it's too fair to blame them because they didn't have much to work with. I was pleased with Bloom's performance and thought he did a fine job with what he had to work with. His big "crying scene" at the end was ruined due to the way it was edited and again, the music. I think we were waiting for his character to breakdown and when it finally happened Crowe kept it in the background. As for Dunst, I'm not going to blame her too much because she did have a few charming scenes but again, the screenplay made her out more of a stalker than anything else.

GARDEN STATE was a lot better. Every good director has a bad step and I believe that's what ELIZABETHTOWN will be remembered as for Crowe. I personally think VANILLA SKY and ALMOST FAMOUS are among the best films of the decade so far and I'd probably put AF at 1 or 2. ELIZABETHTOWN just seemed like a complete disaster in the writing department. I really don't know what the movie was or what it was trying to do.

I love Cameron Crowe. Let's make that absolutely clear. The casting of his movies is superb not to mention the writing or the sound tracks. Here, however, in Elizabethtown, the leading man is a hole on the screen. No charisma, no projection, no involvement. I'm not a teenage girl, I grant you that, but I don't think Cameron Crowe made this film for teenage girls. There was something about returning, about rediscovering and/or perhaps about first love. Elizabethtown aims higher than most teenage bound movies. The comatose performance of Orlando Bloom makes everyone else appear as if they were high on something. Billy Wilder is always a little bit present in Cameron Crowe's movies and Kirstin Dunst's character is a Wilder character if I ever saw one. I kept seeing the young Shirley MacLaine, or longing for, I should say. Dunst is an interesting actress but here she has to work with a wooden leading man, so that piece of miscasting throws the whole well intentioned enterprise way off course. Never mind, my love and admiration for Crowe will survive this one.

For the critics who say this film meanders and rambles, I have to say this: When your dad dies, your life meanders and rambles. I can't speak for everyone who has lost a father but I can speak for myself, and I thought it was spot-on in it's portrayal of the confusing roller-coaster that surrounds the death of a parent. Elizabethtown has all of the things you'd expect from a Cameron Crowe movie: a unique and personal story, great music, beautiful cinematography, surprising humor (I was actually choking from laughing so hard during the videotape scene) and very real and touching moments. I thought the acting was great. Orlando Bloom gave a touching and subtle performance. Kirsten Dunst's accent did go in and out a bit, but she and Bloom had such great chemistry that it didn't bother me at all. Susan Sarandon was perfect, Alec Baldwin was hilarious, the Elizabethtown residents were quirky and fun...if I have a complaint it's that the amazing Judy Greer was underutilized. Overall, this movie had everything that a great movie should have. Shame on the critics who panned it simply because it didn't follow the usual Hollywood plot map—this film is about taking the scenic route and making the trip meaningful, and that's what it did.

I don't know. It seems to me that Americans have lost their taste for "small" films - films that emphasize character, rather than explosions and movement. You get the same sort of comments with movies like Tim Burton's wonderful Big Fish or Spielberg's Terminal. I will admit that the Dunst character is a cliché, but this movie is really about the extras, the characters that step out of the background, have their moment, and step back again. Paula Dean stands out as a woman to whom family -- *all* her family -- is all-important and who keeps it together with food and photographs. I'm not from Kentucky or the South, although I've lived South for a number of years. I'm not that interested in *my* extended family -- and in that respect I'm far closer to the Bloom character than to the Dean character. But I recognize that this film is a great portrait of a certain kind of family life. Also, the dead father becomes a very well-rounded character indeed, as you think about the contradictions of his life. This is a film that expects the audience to do a little work, and it pays very well for that work.