Review of Elizabethtown (2005) by Fuzzy M — 18 Oct 2009

Cameron Crowe rides again, after winning a Best Screenplay Oscar for Almost Famous (2000), and trying an experimental thriller with Vanilla Sky (2001), he found himself firmly back on familiar territory with this one.

Despite the criticisms this one received upon release, it's not as bad as you think. It begins with industrial shoe designer Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) getting fired from his job after a new kind of shoe he designed has been recalled, and cost the company he works for nearly $1 billion dollars, and then his girlfriend Ellen (Jessica Biel) leaves him, and all in the same day, he gets the news that his father has died, and he has to go to Elizabethtown, Kentucky to collect the body.

On the way there, he makes a friend with flight attendant Claire (Kirsten Dunst), who helps gives him directions to Elizabethtown. When Drew gets there, he meets his extended family, who are having a huge memorial to him, and Drew gets into a romance with Claire.

It's a very good film, which shows a good side to middle-America, it's got a gentle sense of humour, Bloom does well with an American accent and Dunst makes a good love interest, but there's good support from Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin and Loudon Wainwright!!