Cinerant

This Time Around

There's something inherently fascinating about the South. Maybe it's the fact that not everybody feels the need to wear designer watches or drive designer cars. There aren't a lot of billboards advertising a VIOXX class action lawsuit, nor are there people trying to talk to you on a street corner about debt consolidation. It's a charming place that is all too frequently depicted as a backwards, hillbilly, redneck, Confederate flag-loving boondocks that doesn't move along with the times.

Thankfully, Elizabethtown, Cameron Crowe's latest film presents a vision of the South that is rarely seen. Most of the film takes place right outside of Louisville (Lew-a-vill), in a contemporary little suburb that highlights the best the South has to offer: family, great cooking, Southern hospitality, quirkiness, and charm. Crowe shows America what makes the South a special place to millions of Americans, as well as the gestation place of some of America's greatest literary ideas.

Unfortunately, unlike many of his other films, Crowe gets tmilieuleu right, but the mechanics don't completely work. The film is about Drew (Orlando Bloom), a young man who has financially ruined an enormous multi-national company, so he decides to kill himself. Before he can, he finds out his father is dead. He has to return to his father's home in Kentucky to retrieve his body and bring it back to his mother and sister in Oregon. On his way, he meets a perky flight attendant who tries to win his heart, but in the process of doing so, confuses him. But he's enamored with her enough that he goes on a cross country road trip in search of the answer to a spiritual quest she sets him upon.

Sounds like a lot of good ideas, right? Add Crowe's ability to write fully realized, thrdimensionalnal characters, his love for all music that is great (and new to me), and you'll have brilliance, right? You'd think, but unfortunately, you instead get a film that's not as good as the sum of its parts.

First, and foremost, there's a lot to like in Elizabethtown and even what doesn't work is still going to be worlds better than Doom, Into the Blue or Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. The biggest problem with the film is that there are too many movies in this one. It's great to encounter a film that's overly ambitious, and any of the ideas in this film would work and be a great movie, but unfortunately, they're not all meant to be in one film. As they exist, so much is condensed into highlight and beats that it's hard to completely feel the depth of every story.

The second problem is with Drew. Others have tried to blame Bloom for the failings of the film, but his performance is really not the problem. The inherent failing is the fact that Drew is completely passive throughout the entire film. He doesn't do anything throughout the entire film except react to people and events that occur around him. Instead of being a willing participant in any of these events however, he watches everything occur, but remains inert, unaware of everything changing. This is problematic because he doesn't serve as a driving force. The story is only moved by the people on the outside, which keeps Drew from connecting with the audience, thereby making the story feel additionally disjointed and confused.

Hopefully, this is just a confusion and experience of growth for Crowe. If a perfect world, he'll pick up these pieces and keep on moving--further South.

posted by cinegod @ 9:48 PM