|
Thursday, 27 July 2006 |
  There is an unwritten law in filmmaking. Movies are linear. The story starts at the beginning, works it way through the middle and finally arrives at the end. Sometimes the story is actually told backward, sometimes it starts at the middle, moves to the end and then jumps back to the beginning, but the story itself, once it is put back together, always moves in a linear manner. It makes sense. After all, that's what life is like. Or is it? Then again, maybe life isn't linear at all. Maybe it starts off in one direction, screeches to a halt, backtracks, shoots off in a completely different direction, wanders, jumps from one place to another and then, finally, ends up... somewhere. Maybe that is why movies are so easy and life isn't.
Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) is a hotshot young tennis shoe designer who has spent the last eight years developing a shoe which, now that it is being recalled, will lose his employer a tidy one billion dollars. Of course, it is not possible for one person to be solely responsible for such a monumental gaff, but we won't go there. Drew is about to be epically fired (he's even flown in by helicopter) by his greasy, greedy "We're all a big family" boss. All he can manage to say, repeatedly, is "I'm OK", though none of his co-workers cares.
Unfortunately, Drew's father is also about to pass away and he is delegated to fly to Kentucky and tend to the funeral arrangements and all his father's relatives. On the overnight flight, he meets stewardess Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst) who takes an unusual interest in him, not solely because he is the only passenger on the plane. The setup between these two is not anything new. He is distant, she is oddly intrusive, spouting occasional bits of wisdom which are completely out of place. When she includes her phone number with detailed directions to his destination, Drew has no choice but call her once he finds himself alone in his hotel suite and several hours of telephone conversations follow.
Now is the point where Elizabethtown combines an odd mix of convention (Drew meeting all the quirky Kentuckians) and what is a decidedly non-codependent emotional dance between him and Claire. No doubt, the path their interaction takes will frustrate conventional romantics, but I was kept interested with the constant thought of "Where, exactly is this going?" Some topics are beaten beyond recognition, such as the Kentucky relatives and their inability to distinguish between California and Oregon, but just shrug those things off because, somehow, like so many enjoyable movies, everything is brought to a point in the end. Yes, enjoying Elizabethtown requires a bit more acceptance of disbelief than a lot of movies, particularly since there was simply not enough time to create something that the final 20 minutes relies on. Just relax and accept it as it is, because it is this item and the last 20 minutes that somehow, oddly, brings it all together.
Anyone who knows the movies of Director Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire, Say Anything) will typically expect a rather linear, unsurprising, though generally enjoyable story, so it must have been a shock when Elizabethtown premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and it was not only too long, but changed directions like a hopelessly lost motorist. There were two problems. It hadn't successfully completed the editing stage and most of the critics who saw it were threatened by not viewing quite the standard, simple Cameron Crowe story. One "critic" condemned it as "A lifeless, droning shoggoth of cyclopean self-indulgence". It couldn't possibly be more self-indulgent than that statement. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Fortunately, 20 minutes has been cut since then. As far as hanging with the directions of the story, that is up to the individual viewer. Elizabethtown is definitely unconventional, all the more confusing since it has such a mainstream veneer, but it is also a welcome break. Not quite Hollywood, not quite indie, Elizabethtown is a bit unconventional, but a real joy for anyone who is willing to ride along with its bumps.
Starring: Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Bruce McGill, Judy Greer, Jessica Biel, Paul Schneider, Louden Wainright, Gailard Sartain
Director: Cameron Crowe
Written by: Cameron Crowe
Cinematographer: John Toll
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Rated: PG-13
Running Time: 123 mins
Release: 2005
Reviewer: John Rice
|
All Reviews and original content © 2004-2007 Slacker-Reviews.com. Any reproduction in whole or in part without the express written consent of Slacker-Reviews.com is a violation of applicable laws.
Modification and hosting by Rice Photography & Design
|
What is Slacker Reviews?
