Review of Elizabethtown (2005) by Markb. — 19 Oct 2005

Could it be that Cameron Crowe is to 2005 what M. Night Shyamalan was to 2004? Both writer-directors have made audiences, critics and exhibitors very happy over the last several years by continuing to revisit their pet themes (Night with suspense tales that seem to travel in one direction but end up--or begin--somewhere different entirely; Cam with upbeat, deeply felt romances that give his extensive record collection a huge workout).

..but, with Shyamalan's The Village and Crowe's Elizabethtown, seem to heve suddenly and without a completely clear explanation caused hordes of viewers and reviewers to load their pockets with geological specimens en route to a public stoning as they not only slam both filmmakers' most recent projects but pull an "I-never-knew-ye" (aka a "reevaluation") on them, suddenly claiming that their previous work really wasn't all that good either.

I truly don't get it; in both cases, the only 'crime' either committed was hitting a triple rather than their usual home run. Does Elizabethtown knock it out of the park the way Say Anything, Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire (the most eminently quotable movie of the past decade) did? No, it doesn't.

Does it have definite structural problems? Yes, it does. Should Crowe have cut ANOTHER 18 or 20 minutes out of the finished work? Certainly. Is he at times trying a bit too hard to achieve emotional effects that previously came completely naturally and effortlessly to him? Sure.

Is it lumpy and unwieldy in places, with sequences that either don't work at all or maybe would've if trimmed a little? No question. But there's also no question that the stuff in Elizabethtown that DOES work--eccentric, winsome flight attendant Kirsten Dunst's introduction to depressed passenger Orlando Bloom, Susan Sarandon's performance-art eulogy to her late husband and Bloom's dad, corporate weasel Alec Baldwin's exquisitely, hilariously pain-inducing dressing down of Bloom after the humiliating public failure of the latter's athletic shoe design--is beautiful.

Here, as in much of his previous work, Crowe proves himself to be the most unabashedly romantic of American directors currently working; I can only admire and envy how wonderful his marriage to musician Nancy Wilson (who scored this) must be to inspire such depth of feeling in his films.

And I love how Elizabethtown provides the antidote to two bad movies currently inhabiting other theaters: Dunst's astonishingly lovable stewardess counteracts the completely hateful, callous airplane crew in Flightplan, while Crowe's total generosity of spirit toward small-town America provides a much-needed flip side to the bile-choked attitude that informed every frame of Junebug that didn't feature Amy Adams; Crowe knows as well as anybody that Chuck & Cindy's elaborate wedding, which provides much of the romantic backdrop for the two principals, IS unforgettably tacky, but he also reveals genuine affection for it.

I do have mixed feelings about a major element of Crowe's casting; Bloom isn't all that much livelier in a contemporary setting than he was in such period pieces as Troy and Kingdom of Heaven, but maybe a more-or-less blank slate is what Crowe wanted, and anyway, Dunst is lively, charming and endearing enough to cover both actors.

Ultimately, Elizabethtown's dealbreaker for many may be the final 20 minutes, in which Bloom and his father's remains take an admittedly improbable road trip that will either strike individual viewers as interminable and unbearable.

..or intoxicating and irresistable. (Guess which camp I fall into?) Comparisons to Cimino's Heaven's Gate, Coppola's One From the Heart and Levinson's Toys--big, expensive, self-indulgent "dream projects" made by people at the height of their careers (but not for long) have already started; I'd prefer to link Elizabethtown with a late-career work by Crowe's filmmaking idol Billy Wilder: Kiss Me Stupid, a sex comedy that was almost universally despised in 1964 but now is appreciated as the perceptive, wise and rather sweet-natured film that it always was, and considered Dean Martin's and (along with Hitchcock's Vertigo) Kim Novak's best picture.